You might be asking yourself what to do about your defense. Here's a brief tutorial on defensive troops.
There are only three kinds of defensive troops worth mentioning. They are called "defensive" because their scores are better on defense, than they are on offense. Except for farming attacks in the first few days of the new game world, you should NEVER use defensive troops on the attack. They die too easily because of their low attack numbers. When your "defensive" troops die on the attack, there is no one left to defend your village.
Now that the beginner protection period has ended, EVERYONE should have at least SOME defensive troops. I know there are still some knuckleheads out there that think they'll be safe as long as they have more points than everyone around them. You're wrong, and you'll never win that argument. It's not open for debate.
When you stop being ridiculous, and start training defensive troops, you will need to train Spear Fighters, Swordsmen, and Archers.
Spear Fighters: Sometimes referred to as Spearmen or simply Spears. Spear Fighters are the first military unit available to every player. Because of this, many players make the mistake of building their entire defense with Spears. This is dangerous. Although cheap and quick to train, Spears are highly vulnerable to attacks by Axemen, which are always the more abundant attack troops used by your enemy.
The Spear Fighter's strength is against attacking cavalry. Since the higher percentage of attack forces will NOT be cavalry, why would you defend your entire village with nothing but Spears?
It can be argued that Spears are important to have, because later in the game, most attack forces will include about 25 to 33% cavalry to kill your Swordsmen. Having a similar ratio of Spears will negate the effects of the cavalry/Axemen combination attack. My personal opinion is that since most attacking armies will contain a smaller percentage of cavalry, and an even smaller percentage of Mounted Archers, your resource points will be better spent on Archers. More on that later.
Swordsmen: Swordsmen (or Swords) have a much higher General Defense score than Spears. Because of this, they are far better at killing Axemen. You will need lots of iron to produce them, and it gets tiring having to constantly upgrade your iron mine to compensate for this. Believe me, it's worth it.
Swords are not as good as Spears or Archers against cavalry, so as more and more Light Cavalry appear in the game, you will need to accompany your Swords with a larger percentage of Spears and/or Archers.
Archers: Archers are the best defensive unit in the game. The reason I say that is simple. The only attacking unit that they defend poorly against is Mounted Archers. Since Mounted Archers are prohibitively expensive to produce, they are never used in great numbers. Therefore, the Archer enjoys the advantage of only rarely having to face his nemesis.
Archers are expensive. They are the most expensive defensive unit in the game besides Heavy Cavalry, but Heavy Cavalry suck. More on that later. Archers are also slow to produce. What makes them good is their general defense of 50 and their cavalry defense of 40. You could say that in most circumstances, the Archer is the perfect defensive troop. When combined with an equal number of Swordsmen, the general defense of the village will be such that no army of Axemen will ever break through.
Some people have argued that Spears need to be in the defensive discussion for the cavalry defense. No doubt you will try hard enough to find a scenario using the simulator, where a fictitious player has an army of nothing but Light Cavalry, and attacks your village without spears, inflicting a higher number of casualties. I can tell you it never happens.
Players do not have the patience to wait for a village full of Light Cavalry to be produced, and even if they did, they would understand how costly such an attack would be. Assuming a typical village could produce a maximum of 5750 Light Cavalry, two waves of Light Cavalry could be completely annihilated by a village stacked with Swords and Archers.
Even with an attack of pure Mounted Archers (which could theoretically number about 4500) would lose all troops against a village stacked with Swords and Archers. In fact, it would take 3 such attacks to kill all the defensive troops in said village.
In this fantasy land where no one trains Axemen (the cheapest and most abundant attack unit in the game) your defense would suffer due to the lack of Spears. In the real world, most attacking armies will be about 60% Axemen, and a smattering of Rams and Catapults. There will be Cavalry (and even the occasional Mounted Archer), but they will almost never be more than 25 to 35% of the attack force. In this scenario, the Swordsman/Archer combination defense works VERY effectively. When you arrive at that point in the game, where armies of 10000 Axemen or more are banging down your door, you'll wish you hadn't wasted so much wood on Spears.
Don't ask me about Heavy Cavalry. They are a defensive troop type, but they should not be considered as a building block for your defense. No more than a couple hundred should ever be trained in any village, and those should ONLY be trained as fast support for tribemates and allies. They are overrated, expensive, and they consume too much farm space. More on that later.
Sidst rettet af Moelner Lør Sep 05, 2009 5:02 pm, rettet 1 gang
Moelner Trold
Antal indlæg : 308 Join date : 21/08/09
Emne: Important Lør Sep 05, 2009 4:53 pm
Don't neglect your wall. A level 20 wall is cheap to build, and it doubles the defensive score of the troops in the village. It's like having a second army in your village for a fraction of the cost. It can only be destroyed by Rams, which usually aren't available to most players this early in the game.
> The key to success in a prolonged conflict is to make your enemy lose more resources than you do. Speed is important early in the conflict, but nobles soon run low, and all wars inevitably become wars of attrition. The more resource points and hours your enemy requires to replace his lost troops, the better. The goal is to lose less than they do, so you can recover faster, and hit them while they're still trying to recuperate.
Catapults:
Of course, you probably won't be using cats often if at all but...
The thing most people don't know about cats is that they are best deployed in waves, not a lump attack. This is because it takes less and less cats to knock a building down one level as its level decreases.
Here is a list of how many catapults are required for each level.
30 to 29 -> 20 29 to 28 -> 19 28 to 27 -> 17 27 to 26 -> 16 26 to 25 -> 15 25 to 24 -> 13 24 to 23 -> 12 23 to 22 -> 11 22 to 21 -> 10 21 to 20 -> 10 20 to 19 -> 9 19 to 18 -> 8 18 to 17 -> 8 17 to 16 -> 7 16 to 15 -> 6 15 to 14 -> 6 14 to 13 -> 6 13 to 12 -> 5 12 to 11 -> 5 11 to 10 -> 4 10 to 9 -> 4 9 to 8 -> 4 8 to 7 -> 4 7 to 6 -> 3 6 to 5 -> 3 5 to 4 -> 3 4 to 3 -> 3 3 to 2 -> 3 2 to 1 -> 3 1 to 0 -> 3
Total cats: 239
How many would you need to drop a level 30 building down to zero in one hit? 1175! That's a difference of 937 cats, or 7496 population!
The morale and luck does not affect the catapults. However, if you're going to do this to someone, make sure you bring the wall down to zero first, with your rams.
Do not mass produce catapults unless you have multiple villages. Usually 20 catapults in an offensive village is enough(to do tricks on enemies, more will be on this).
Sidst rettet af Moelner Lør Sep 05, 2009 5:21 pm, rettet 1 gang
If you attack another player, that is as good as you are, then your troops will attack with morale 100%. They are happy to fight a fair fight and give everything they can. If you have 5000 points and you attack another player with 200 points, then lots of your soldiers are unhappy with that unfair fight. They will not use all their skill. Or you could say they underestimate the enemy. The result is, that they don't attack with 100% morale. If you attack with only 50% morale that means, that your troops fight with 50% of their strength. You lose more and have a lower chance of success. That is important to protect small players and make sure that they have a least a small chance.
It does not matter, how far away the target of the attack is. Of course you have disadvantages because the troops are not in your village, but the morale is not affected.
You can have both morale and loyalty in a fight of course. If you try to take over a village of a smaller player, you send a nobleman in your attack. You might fight with 60% morale and if you are successfull (at 60% of your troop's strenght), then your nobleman will lower the loyalty by 20-35.
Here is Morale Calculation info.
Enemy 20% of your points, you have 90% morale Enemy 17.5% of your points, you have 82% morale Enemy 15% of your points, you have 75% morale Enemy 10% of your points, you have 60% morale Enemy 5% of your points, you have 45% morale Enemy 2.5% of your points, you have 38% morale
And what does this mean in practice?
Morale is 90% => you lose 133% troops (so if morale was 100%, you'd lose 100%.. with morale at 90%, you lose 1/3 more.. if this tips the balance of the battle it ofcourse gets a lot worse-
Morale is 80% => you lose 150% troops Morale is 67% => you lose 200% troops Morale is 50% => you lose 300% troops Morale is 32% => you lose 600% troops (32% is lowest morale you can ever have)
Morale is calculated on total player points of you vs total points of your target
PS: Taken from official forum. info.
Enemy 20% of your points, you have 90% morale Enemy 17.5% of your points, you have 82% morale Enemy 15% of your points, you have 75% morale Enemy 10% of your points, you have 60% morale Enemy 5% of your points, you have 45% morale Enemy 2.5% of your points, you have 38% morale
And what does this mean in practice?
Morale is 90% => you lose 133% troops (so if morale was 100%, you'd lose 100%.. with morale at 90%, you lose 1/3 more.. if this tips the balance of the battle it ofcourse gets a lot worse-
Morale is 80% => you lose 150% troops Morale is 67% => you lose 200% troops Morale is 50% => you lose 300% troops Morale is 32% => you lose 600% troops (32% is lowest morale you can ever have)
Morale is calculated on total player points of you vs total points of your target
When attacking a multi-village player in a situation where you have low morale, there is a strategy that can work in your favor. If you start hitting one of the player's villages that has low troop counts hard, you may be able to get them to shift in support troops. Take down the wall, and start ennobling it if needed. Send in a lightly escorted noble as bait, and keep scouting his other villages to see when his troops move. This will work occasionally.
Rally point ennobling:
This usually works best with 4 nobles, but you can work it with 1-2 if you have to.
Here is a tactic that works very well against a player who is good, but not good enough to know the strategy . Most players, when they see 5 incoming attacks in a row, with the first at ram speed and the last 4 at noble speed, will try to move their troops out for the first 1-2 waves, then bring them back into the village for the last 3 to kill off your nobles.
Here is how to stop that. In your first wave, send about 20 catapults to destroy the rally point, along with some axes.
If they moved their troops out of the village, and are anticipating canceling the move to bring their troops back, you will prevent them from canceling by destroying the point. After this, your 4 noble waves will hit the village and take it, with no losses to you. Their troops outside their village will disappear after you take it.
The rally point takes 4 minutes to rebuild, so time your hits so that the first noble wave hits right after the first catapult wave, and the other 3 noble waves hit 2 minutes later or so. Time the 3 noble waves so that they are all very close together. The space in between is an out for you. If he cancels before you destroy the rally point and tries to insert his troops between your 2 groups of waves, you will still take down the wall for free and only lose 3 nobles that cost 1x each to rebuild.
If the person you attack doesn't move his troops out, you lose nothing because your attacks will proceed like they normally would have, except that your weak first wave will die. Win/Win for you.
How to defend a village without troops and no wall:
Part 1 When you see 4 nobles incoming, or enough nobles to take it with your loyalty, start revoking offensive techs and sending your nobles at your own village.
Get the loyalty down to 20 or so. Once this is done, the enemy nobles will hit a village they already took, wasting nobles and killing their own troops potentially.
Before the village is taken, find when the last enemy noble hit goes off. Time an attack of yours with a noble to hit 1 second after that attack. You will kill whatever troops they put in the village, with no wall, and make them waste another noble, and take back the village.
Part 2 If your village has a loyalty under 25, and you see 1 noble hit only incoming from more than 5 hours out, send a noble to capture your own village. Loyalty will be reset to 25, and it will regain enough that the village will most likely not be taken.
Timing attacks(noble trains):
To send multiple attack at the same time you need to open multiple windows, prepare all attacks till the final ok button, arrange the windows over each other, so that you can still see each OK-box, then wait for the right second to send and click all ok boxes from right to left.
This will generally time attacks within the same second or couple of seconds if you get it right.
Naming Villages:
If you name all your villages the same, it can be confusing for the enemy, but there is a better way.
A strategy I use is to name each village by coordinate. However, use coordinates from other villages of yours. Switch them around, and it confuses the enemy. You can name them with coordinates of enemy villages, but they see which player they are attacking at the attack confirmation screen, so it is not as effective.
Shifting Defense:
If you are going to sleep, try to find a sitter in a different timezone than you. If this is not possible, either send your offense to a personal ally who is not under attack, or send all your defense from your defensive villages to support your offensive villages.
Mass scouting:
Some villages of large players will have little or no scout support. If you send 2 scouts(1 scout can die with bad morale) at each village of a player, you will get at least some reports, and lose few scouts in total.
Fake Attacks:
If you send a 1 axe wave, and then 4 1 ram waves afterwards, with 1 sword in support coming after that, it will look like a clearing wave and a noble train, followed by support to hold the village, if the person is not online when it happens.
Final Noble
Part I Building a noble in a defensive village to send as the final noble for defensive support in a newly taken village is important so you do not have to send them separately. Attack with your first 3 nobles from an offensive village (with a few catapults to take out the rally point) and sent your defensive support with the 4th noble to arrive shortly after the first 3 in an attack formation.
Part II Some nobling may require more than 4 noble hits to reduce the morale of a village the full 100%. If the nobling is long range you may want to send 5 nobles. If you do this you will want to have the 5th noble lightly protected while the 4th is heavily protected so that if you take the village in 4 hits, the 5th will die when it hits as it will be protected by a large support group.
When attacking a multi-village player in a situation where you have low morale, there is a strategy that can work in your favor. If you start hitting one of the player's villages that has low troop counts hard, you may be able to get them to shift in support troops. Take down the wall, and start ennobling it if needed. Send in a lightly escorted noble as bait, and keep scouting his other villages to see when his troops move. This will work occasionally.
Rally point ennobling:
This usually works best with 4 nobles, but you can work it with 1-2 if you have to.
Here is a tactic that works very well against a player who is good, but not good enough to know the strategy . Most players, when they see 5 incoming attacks in a row, with the first at ram speed and the last 4 at noble speed, will try to move their troops out for the first 1-2 waves, then bring them back into the village for the last 3 to kill off your nobles.
Here is how to stop that. In your first wave, send about 20 catapults to destroy the rally point, along with some axes.
If they moved their troops out of the village, and are anticipating canceling the move to bring their troops back, you will prevent them from canceling by destroying the point. After this, your 4 noble waves will hit the village and take it, with no losses to you. Their troops outside their village will disappear after you take it.
The rally point takes 4 minutes to rebuild, so time your hits so that the first noble wave hits right after the first catapult wave, and the other 3 noble waves hit 2 minutes later or so. Time the 3 noble waves so that they are all very close together. The space in between is an out for you. If he cancels before you destroy the rally point and tries to insert his troops between your 2 groups of waves, you will still take down the wall for free and only lose 3 nobles that cost 1x each to rebuild.
If the person you attack doesn't move his troops out, you lose nothing because your attacks will proceed like they normally would have, except that your weak first wave will die. Win/Win for you.
How to defend a village without troops and no wall:
Part 1 When you see 4 nobles incoming, or enough nobles to take it with your loyalty, start revoking offensive techs and sending your nobles at your own village.
Get the loyalty down to 20 or so. Once this is done, the enemy nobles will hit a village they already took, wasting nobles and killing their own troops potentially.
Before the village is taken, find when the last enemy noble hit goes off. Time an attack of yours with a noble to hit 1 second after that attack. You will kill whatever troops they put in the village, with no wall, and make them waste another noble, and take back the village.
Part 2 If your village has a loyalty under 25, and you see 1 noble hit only incoming from more than 5 hours out, send a noble to capture your own village. Loyalty will be reset to 25, and it will regain enough that the village will most likely not be taken.
Timing attacks(noble trains):
To send multiple attack at the same time you need to open multiple windows, prepare all attacks till the final ok button, arrange the windows over each other, so that you can still see each OK-box, then wait for the right second to send and click all ok boxes from right to left.
This will generally time attacks within the same second or couple of seconds if you get it right.
If you name all your villages the same, it can be confusing for the enemy, but there is a better way.
A strategy I use is to name each village by coordinate. However, use coordinates from other villages of yours. Switch them around, and it confuses the enemy. You can name them with coordinates of enemy villages, but they see which player they are attacking at the attack confirmation screen, so it is not as effective.
Shifting Defense:
If you are going to sleep, try to find a sitter in a different timezone than you. If this is not possible, either send your offense to a personal ally who is not under attack, or send all your defense from your defensive villages to support your offensive villages. Mass scouting:
Some villages of large players will have little or no scout support. If you send 2 scouts(1 scout can die with bad morale) at each village of a player, you will get at least some reports, and lose few scouts in total.
Fake Attacks:
If you send a 1 axe wave, and then 4 1 ram waves afterwards, with 1 sword in support coming after that, it will look like a clearing wave and a noble train, followed by support to hold the village, if the person is not online when it happens.
Final Noble
Part I Building a noble in a defensive village to send as the final noble for defensive support in a newly taken village is important so you do not have to send them separately. Attack with your first 3 nobles from an offensive village (with a few catapults to take out the rally point) and sent your defensive support with the 4th noble to arrive shortly after the first 3 in an attack formation.
Part II Some nobling may require more than 4 noble hits to reduce the morale of a village the full 100%. If the nobling is long range you may want to send 5 nobles. If you do this you will want to have the 5th noble lightly protected while the 4th is heavily protected so that if you take the village in 4 hits, the 5th will die when it hits as it will be protected by a large support group.
The best combination of offensive troops I can come up with so far is axe and light cavalries in a 5:3 ratio, plus 250 rams and 20 catapults. If you can find a better ratio, please add to this.
For a maxed out offensive village, you should have at least 5000 axemen, 3000 light cavalries, 250 rams, and 10 catapults.
Scouting
There are two ways to scout someone. One is to send most(not all) of your scouts out and just hope some of them return, another way is to send one scout with one ram or catapult. Rams and catapults have the same speed. Most people will have rams or catapults in their full attacks. The purpose of sending one ram/catapult with one scout is to trick your opponent to think it is a full attack, and may decide to move all his troops out before the attack hits to avoid losing his troops. In this case, you got your report with just one scout. This will depend on luck, obviously.
Nobling
Once you have a scout report, and you think you can clear out his troops, the attack begins. At the beginning, you only have one village, so are your opponents. To take your first village, determine if your target is right next to you or a few blocks away. If he is right next to you and has no allies nearby, you should only need one noble. If he has allies around or is a few blocks away, use two nobles. Bear in mind each noble takes down the loyalty by 20-35, and recovers by 1 per hour, so if you use one noble, it will take 4-5 times, if you use two, it will take 2-3 times, depending on the distance.
An offensive move to take over will always consist of one clearing force. The clearing force is your main offensive force, which should be your axes, light cavalries, rams and catapults. The nobles will follow. Each noble will need some escort so he doesn't get "killed by the wall". If you have some defensive troops, you may want to use them for escorting, if not, spare 50 axe for each noble. The noble should always go in waves, not in one group. Each attack with a noble will decrease the loyalty by 20-35, if you have two nobles in one attack, it won't decrease any more than that.
Your nobles will move slower than your clearing force. Send the nobles first, then time your attack so your clearing force arrives a few minutes before the nobles arrive.
Noble train
Later on in the game, you should have 4 nobles in one village. 4 nobles in an attack arriving one after another is called a noble train. This will usually get you the village in one go. The principle is still the same, clearing force hits first, followed by the nobles. Some people prefer to have their nobles in their defensive village, whilst some prefer to have them in the offensive village. This is because when the last noble hits the village and decreases the loyalty to below zero, the troops that escorts the noble will stay in the village as supporting troops until you send it back. Some people prefer to have a large supporting troop in their new village, while others prefer to just leave it undefended.
Opponent with multiple villages
When your opponent has multiple villages, send fake attacks to each village and send the real one to the chosen village. Try to time your fake and real attacks so they arrive all villages at roughly the same time. This will make the opponent hard to choose which village to defend. It is always best to clear out the opponent's villages one by one, make sure he has no more troops, then start the nobling. This is because if you clear and take the villages one by one, by the time to took the first village, your points will have risen, while his points have dropped. When you attack his second village, you may suffer from morale loss. If you don't have the strength to take all his villages, ask for nearby members/allies to take part and share the villages.
Free village trick
Most players don't use catapults in their attacks. I stressed the point that you should have 10 catapults in the village because of this trick. When under attack by a noble train, some players who are online at the time of the attack may choose to send his defensive troops out before your clearing force arrives, then cancel the action so the troops come back to ambush your four nobles. If you have 10 catapults in your clearing force aimed at the opponent's rally point, he will not be able to cancel his action, therefore there cannot be an ambush for your nobles. In this case, you got your village with nearly no loss! This will require luck of course. The rally point can be rebuilt within minutes, so make sure your nobles arrive within 2-5 minutes of your clearing force.
Many people study their opponent and send the attacks when they think the opponent are most likely not online, but I like to attack them when they are online, so I may have the chance of getting a "free" village
When you have more than 1 village it's important to secure them. Working more on defense could be a good strategy for when you get your second village which would allow you to take a third village and secure that quickly allowing you to concentrate more on offense.
When you have multiple villages a big advantage is the ability to specifically produce certain types of unit in the village. It's best to specialize villages for certain purposes once you have a few villages secures so that you could reduce your total points which in turn will raise your morale levels when attacking other villages. Alternatively you could get other players to make attacks for you breaking defenses so that you could take the villages and in return you send them support units and resources doing this would benefit you and whatever players are working with you.
This should maximize your damage output and basically you should be able to take down a person's village easily with this kind of wave, unless they're bulking up their defense immensely. If you don't... well you're screwed lol.
Village #2 (Defensive Build)
HQ 20 Barracks 25 Stables 20 Workshop 0 Academy 1 Rally point 1 Market 20 Smithy 20 Timber camp 30 Clay pit 30 Iron mine 30 Farm 30 Warehouse 29(30) your choice Hiding place 0 - don't EVER build this, it's a waste of time Wall 20
buildings will equal 3261 population with 20739 left over for troops Troops can equal depending on how you want to set it up. I like:
Archers can be substituted for spears and swords for maximum efficiency, but it really depends on what you're defending against. Probably the better number would be 5300 spears 5300 swords and 2100 archers. You might also notice that there are 429 population limit still left over. I leave this alone for nobles. You should be nobling with your defensive villages. The reason being behind this is that when you take over a village you want to have defensive units being left behind in the village. Also you want to remember that you want to keep your nobles alive, so having a better defensive stat unit go in for clean up is better than taking in a lot of axes. Ideally you should be able to build 4 nobles and run over a village right away in one shot. I also don't build workshops in defensive villages as there is no point.
I hope this helps some people out and feel free to came with any questions or comments.
I'm randomly using number #1 and #2 to show the difference. You should not make your first village offensive as it puts you at a weird disadvantage. You should ask a tribemate to help you clear out a village. I would, however, recommend that your third village be started off as an attack, and try to keep your ratio a bit higher on attack as you get more villages. So ideally you should have 1:1 ratio on off/def, but the odd number should always be offensive. Hope this helps.
In conclusion, don't mix your villages.
Build One defensive - one offensive.
But at this time Build 2-3 defensive and 1 offensive.Why? Because it takes 45 days to build one fully equiped defensive village (not including HC).
This question invariably comes up sooner or later, so I will address it now. DO NOT waste your time and energy researching and training Heavy Cavalry. They are too expensive, and the cost cannot be justified. There are hardcore fans of Heavy Cav that will argue with me all day long about this, but in the end, those guys who defend themselves with Heavy Cav always find out that their village can't train enough to survive a 2 wave attack. The guys who attack with Heavy Cav tend to cry alot when they get thwarted by a defender who has a lot of Spear Fighters that cost less than one tenth the cost of his Heavy Cav.
A single Heavy Cavalry unit costs more than 7 times the cost of a Swordsman. Why do I compare Heavy Cavalry to a Swordsman? Because Heavy Cavalry are not offensive troops. They defend better than they attack. The attack stats for a Heavy Cavalry unit are similar to the stats for 6 Swordsmen. You don't attack with Swordsmen, because they are defensive troops.
That being said, lets compare 1 Heavy Cavalry unit to 6 Swordsmen.
6 Swordsmen cost 780 resource points and 6 village slots. Combined, those 6 Swordsmen give you an attack rating of 150, a general defense of 300, a cavalry defense of 150, and an archer defense of 240.
1 Heavy Cavalry costs 950 resource points and 6 village slots. His attack rating is 150. His general defense is 200, his cavalry defense is 80, and his archer defense is 180.
The only benefit of Heavy Cavalry is that they move faster than other defensive troops. If you are sending defensive support to a tribe member or ally in a hurry, Heavy Cavalry make excellent fast support troops. Unfortunately, in order to build enough Heavy Cavalry to be of any help to anyone, you must sacrifice a lot of farm space. As time goes by, and you accumulate multiple villages, it may be practical to devote an entire village to training only Heavy Cavalry. In the short term, it makes no sense strategically or economically to develop Heavy Cav for your first few villages.
The only other acceptable reason to train Heavy Cav is if you are trying to replace defensive troops in a hurry after your village sustains an attack that leaves you defenseless. In this instance, your village will be likely subjected to multiple follow-up attacks, and you will need to train defense of any sort as rapidly as possible.
If you build up your defensive village to have EVERYTHING at the max level, except Head Quarters (level 20), Workshop (level 12) and Market (level 18). You have 20772 villagers left to building troops. In a defensive village, you do not really need a workshop. However, I do not distinguish between the buildings in my defensive villages and offensive villages for the simple reason that if the enemy sees that you attack from a village with 9967 points, and he sees that half your villages have 9967 points and the other half have 10040 points (or whatever) it will be REALLY easy for the person to deduce which of your villages are offensive and which are defensive. Also, you may find that you wish to switch their focus after a major attack, according to what your current needs are. With that in mind, keep your villages with the same configuration: all maxed out, except for Head Quarters, Market and Workshop. Once you have your wall and defenses built up, you can demolish your Hiding Place as well, to gain another 8 villagers for troops.
In the beginning this is rather difficult, as your first two or three villages need to be able to Attack and Defend. Once you have several villages, the secret is in specialization: NO MIXED VILLAGES. Make them either defensive or offensive to maximize their strength in their function.
GENERAL DEFENSIVE VILLAGE
At level 3, Heavy Cavalry have the following attributes: 1. Attack: 210 2. General defense: 280 3. Cavalry defense: 112 4. Villagers: 6 5. Wood: 200 6. Clay: 150 7. Iron: 600
At level 3, Swordsmen have the following attributes:
Now - using simple math (with villagers being the key here), you can see that 1 Heavy Cavalry takes 6 villagers, and costs 200 wood/150 clay/600 iron. It is defensively better for general defense and not so good for cavalry defense (280 general defense/112 cavalry defense). To have the same effect with Spearmen and swords, you would need 4 swordsmen and 2 Spearmen, which will give you (280/126) defense. So, using those figures as cost, you will get the following:
When adding those up, you get that a "package" of 6 units that performs roughly the same as 1 Heavy Cavalry, that you would pay 220/180/300 for. 1 Heavy Cavalry costs 200/150/600, with the added benefit of double the movement speed to help out on "away" defense of this "package" of 4 Swordsmen and 2 Spearmen would move. This means it is slightly more expensive with wood and clay, but a LOT less in iron, and provides BETTER benefits than Heavy Cavalry, apart from the speed bonus Heavy Cavalry offers.
So - to summarize, UNLESS SPEED IS IMPORTANT, Spearmen AND Swordsmen REMAIN THE BEST DEFENSE, DUE TO THEIR LOWER COST!
RAPID SUPPORT DEFENSIVE VILLAGE
If you can afford to build Heavy Cavalries, and you are far from your tribesmates, it may be better to go for a full Heavy Cavalry approach. Build only Heavy Cavalry instead of Spearmen and Swordsmen in a defensive village. This means your troops will reach their destinations faster than when you send Spearmen or Swordsmen. There is also the added benefit that you can attack with Heavy Cavalry as well.
Just a word of caution: 1. A full defensive village with Spearmen and Swordsmen will cost you 720000 wood, 540000 clay and 720000 iron (based on 9000 Swordsmen and 9000 Spearmen - 18000 villagers) 2. A full defensive village with only Heavy Cavalry will cost you 600000 wood, 450000 clay and 1800000 iron (based on 3000 Heavy Cavalry - 18000 villagers).
So - unless you have LOTS of iron, don't attempt this approach in too many villages. You can send spare iron from your other villages or trade them on the market, but you will need LOTS of iron to complete this goal in many villages.
Now - again, using simple maths (with villagers being the significant factor again), you get the following facts:
1. The smallest mean factor between these units is 12 (to ensure that we only build WHOLE units and not half a unit) (12 axemen, vs 3 LC, vs 2 Heavy Cavalry) - if you don't know what I mean with this, just read up on your algebra and trust me... 2. 12 Axemen will cost you 60/30/40 * 12 = 720/360/480 with an attack power of 672. 3. 3 LC will cost you 125/100/250 * 3 = 475/300/750 with an attack power of 546. 4. 2 Heavy Cavalry will cost you 200/150/600 * 2 = 400/300/1200 with an attack power of 420.
From the above, it is clear that 3 LC is a better attack than 2 Heavy Cavalry as its attack is significantly more and costs significantly less iron. It is important to have both cavalries and axemen in your attacks, as axemen are better attackers against spearmen and cavalry are better attackers against swordsmen.
If your opponent has many Heavy Cavalries in his villages for defense, your LCs will decimate them, as their cavalry defense is pretty low!
The only reason why you may want to use Heavy Cavalry instead of LC is to be able to use the SAME TROOPS BOTH FOR DEFENSE AND OFFENSE. Otherwise, STAY AWAY FROM Heavy Cavalry, they are not really worth their cost!
It is also important to build rams to break down walls. Without walls, their defenses is MUCH less potent, and you will use less troops to take the enemy out.
A quick simulation:
The defender has 5000 Spearmen and 5000 Swordsmen (level 3) and a level 20 wall. Using the simulator we get the following tests:
1. If you attack with 2000 LC and 8000 Axes (no rams), the following will happen: - You will lose ALL your units - The enemy will have about 1200 Spearmen and 1200 Swordsmen left in the village. - The village is NOT cleared.
2. If you attack with 2000 LC and 8000 Axes (with 250 rams), the following will happen: - You will lose 6088 axes and 1522 LC and 190 rams - You will break the wall down to level 1. - The village is cleared.
In conclusion (for offensive village):
1. Build about 350 rams. 2. Build about 2400 light cavalry. 3. Build axes for the rest.
Typical fully developed villages are often built up as follows:
1. All buildings at highest levels. 2. Exceptions are HQ (Level 20) and Market (Level 18) and Hiding place (Level 0).
The Attack Village
When this village above is an attack village, it consists of the following troop configuration:
1. 300 Rams 2. 2400 Light Cavalry -OR- 1600 Heavy Cavalry (preferrably Light Cavalry) - needed to take out defending swords and attack units. 3. The rest are filled with Axemen - needed to take out defending spearmen and attack units. 4. ZERO spears and swords (swords are only 62.5% as strong as axes, and spears are only 25% as strong as axes in attack!)
Why?
Now you ask - why the odd number of rams and axes? Simple:
With this army, 600 rams kills about 6 units more than 300 rams. Sure, the wall is completely annihilated, but, to accommodate the further 300 or so rams, you need to get rid of around 200 light cavalries and 1200 axes, which results in about 1200 less kills. It is simply a case of having to use the simulator. I have used the simulator against a completely defensive village with 7500 spears, 7500 swords, 1000 scouts and 500 heavy cavalry. With different values, the scalability is the same.
Conclusion
1. DO NOT attack with swords and spears - they are better left for defense at home! 2. Have a good mix of cavalry, axes and rams, as cavalry are good attackers against swords, and axes are good attackers against spears. Rams, in turn, are good against the wall of a village. 3. Do not use catapults against a wall - rams are more effective! Use catapults only when you want to attack buildings OTHER than the wall, such as the rally point. Without a rally point, the player can't receive or send troops around for additional protection.
A full blown co-ordinated attack (especially against a very strong player or tribe) should be initiated as follows:
Planning the attacks:
Check the ETAs of your attacks to plan your REAL attack. Why do you need your attacks planned to the minute? Simple - you want your nobles to arrive JUST after your real attacks do - to prevent them from dying, and to take the village before the player can get reinforcements.
Starting the attacks:
Once you have completed your planning, the actual attacks should be sent. I have found that the best way to do this is as follows:
1. A day or two before the real attacks are to be send, start sending massive fakes. 2. After using the attack calculator to determine the correct times to attack, start sending the attacks in order so that they reach their destinations within minutes of each other. You will usually start with the Nobles, as they move the slowest. 3. Next send your real attack armies so that they reach the destination JUST before the nobles. 4. While doing the real attacks, it is important to keep sending fake attacks, including believable fakes to disguise the real attacks and to ensure that the defender has NO idea which of the attacks are real. It is also important to send fakes to ALL of the defender/tribe's villages, so that they can't pool their troops together in one village where they feel the real attacks are, in fear that the other thousand attacks may be real. 5. Keep sending believable fakes even after your real attacks have been sent, to further confuse the enemy until your Noblemen hit.
Conclusion
1. Do ETA for real attacks. 2. Send fake attacks a day or two before real attacks. 3. Send real attacks, and disguise with fake attacks. Wait for your troops to hit.
This recipe is NOT foolproof, nor guaranteed to work, but if you follow this, your efforts should be successful. Remember, the more troops you send in clearing attacks, the better your chances of clearing and taking the village in question. Even 5 to 8 clearing attacks per target may be required before your noble hits - depends on the situation
Building the Ultimate Defense and Offense for your Village(s)
----------------------------------------------- How to pick the ultimate defensive units ratio? -----------------------------------------------
I would like to propose that the use of the offense/defense simulator should be reserved only for one purpose, and that is to test the result of your attack before actually making it. I would like to propose that the use of the simulator will tend to confuse you if you make extensive use of it to determine the best ratio for defensive units. It will also tend to confuse you if you are trying to pick the best offense units ratio. I will discuss offensive units ratio in the next section.
If you do not use the simulator, how do you determine the best defensive units ratio? The answer is actually more simple and straightforward than you could imagine.
For all units, there are 3 defense parameters. They are General Defense (GD), Cavalry Defense (CD) and Archer Defense (AD).
Let's look at the GD/CD/AD of the 3 defensive units (minus the heavy cavalry.): -- Spears: 15/45/20 Total of GD/CD/AD added up is: 80 Cost: 90 resources and 1 villager
Swords: 50/15/40 Total of GD/CD/AD added up is: 105 Cost: 130 resources and 1 villager
Archers: 50/40/5 Total of GD/CD/AD added up is: 95 Cost: 190 resources and 1 villager --
I went into such details because I would like to ask 2 questions: 1. Does the total of the GD/CD/AD matter? 2. Why is it that every single unit has some kind of weakness?
For the first question: Does the total of the GD/CD/AD matter? -- The total of the GD/CD/AD does matter!! It matters so much that you wouldn't believe it. This is because the total of the GD/CD/AD are your defense power against the 3 kinds of offensive units, the more you have, the more you are able to withstand the 3 kinds of offensive attacks. Now, take note of which two units have the highest GD/CD/AD total. --
For the second question: Why is it that every single unit has some kind of weakness? -- This question is the very reason for a defensive unit ratio. Each of the 3 defense units alone will have a weakness, but if you put 2 or more of these units together, their defensive strength averages up and the strength of one defensive unit cancels out the weakness of another!
Another way to look at this is that when you combine 2 or more different units together, you essential created a new kind of unit with the defensive strength of the average of the 2 or more kind.
For example, if you put a spear and a sword together, you get: spear: 15/45/20 sword: 50/15/40 Together: 32.5/30/30 GD = (15+50)/2 = 32.5 CD = (45+15)/2 = 30 AD = (20+40)/2 = 30
Therefore, when you put the spear and the sword together, you have created or designed a new unit with GD/CD/AD of 32.5/30/30. This might be a paradigm shift for some of you, but I want you to keep this concept in mind. --
Since the number of villagers for each village is limited by a level 30 farm, which supports 24,000 villagers, you have to be extremely selective about the kind of defensive units you have so as to maximize your defensive strength.
Now let's look at 3 reasonable and common ratios for defensive units: -- spears/swords 1:1 ratio GD/CD/AD: 32.5/30/30 Total GD/CD/AD: 92.5
spears/swords/archers 1:1:1 ratio GD/CD/AD: 38.33/33.33/21.66 Total GD/CD/AD: 93.32
swords/archers 1:1 ratio GD/CD/AD: 50/27.5/22.5 Total GD/CD/AD: 100 --
Remember I told you that you should not use a simulator when determining defensive unit ratio? The simple reason is that you could average up the GD/CD/AD of the ratio you chose and determine the best ratio just by looking at the GD/CD/AD of the ratio you created. Another point is that the total GD/CD/AD is very important as the higher your total GD/CD/AD, the more defense you have generally (This is especially crucial if your attacker could not scout you successfully.)
If we classify defense strength as follows: 10 - 20: poor 20 - 30: average 30 - 40: good 40 - 50: excellent
The "spears/swords 1:1 ratio" has a low good defense for GD and average defense for everything else.
The "spears/swords/archers 1:1:1 ratio" has good defense for GD, good defense for CD and average defense for AD.
The "swords/archers 1:1 ratio" has godly defense for GD, and average defense for both CD and AD. However, notice that the CD is higher than AD.
Now, isn't this much simpler and clear than running a few hundred simulations? I will promise you that it will become even more clear if you read my section on the offense ratio.
I would propose that we should pick the ultimate defense ratio based on 2 criteria: 1. Total GD/CD/AD. 2. The villagers/performance ratio of the offense units.
If we based our decision solely on the total GD/CD/AD, the "swords/archers 1:1 ratio" wins.
What is the villagers/performance ratio of the offensive units? -- The villagers/performance ratio of the offensive units is the amount of offensive strength you get for each villager you use on an offensive unit.
Thefore, here are the villagers/performance ratio of axemen, light cavalry and mounted archer: -- axemen: villagers: 1 offensive strength: 40 villagers/performance ratio: 40/1 = 40
Based on the villagers/performance ratio, if we know that the largest offensive force can only consist of an army made up of 23,000 villagers, we could have 23,000 axemen OR 5,750 light cavalry (23000/4) OR 4,600 mounted archers (23000/5).
Total maximum offensive strength of axemen = 23,000 * 40 = 920,000 Total maximum offensive strength of light cavalry = 5,750 * 130 = 747,500 Total maximum offensive strength of mounted archers = 4,600 * 120 = 552,000
Based on the information provided by the maximum offensive strength of each offensive units, you want a lot of defense for axemen, followed by a lesser amount for light cavalary and an even lesser amount for mounted archer.
The "spears/swords 1:1 ratio" has only a low good defense (GD: 32.5) against axemen, so it will suffer greatly against an axemen attack, so this ratio is out.
The "spears/swords/archers 1:1:1 ratio" has good defense against axemen and light cavalry and also adequate defense against mounted archers.
The "swords/archers 1:1 ratio" has a godly defense against axemen (GD: 50), very nice! Furthermore, it has average but adequate defenses against the light cavalry and mounted archers.
From the above analysis, "spears/swords/archers 1:1:1 ratio" is superior to "swords/archers 1:1 ratio" when defending against light cavalry, however, the "swords/archers 1:1 ratio" is significantly more superior to "spears/swords/archers 1:1:1 ratio" when it comes to axemen defense. Therefore, it would be a personal preference on whether to pick either the "spears/swords/archers 1:1:1 ratio" or "swords/archers 1:1 ratio" as each has it's own strength.
However, I feel that the "swords/archers 1:1 ratio" is superior because it has a higher total GD/CD/AD than "spears/swords/archers 1:1:1 ratio" and would fare better on a mixed offensive force comprising of axemen, light cavalry and mounted archers.
----------------------------------------------- How to pick the ultimate offensive units ratio? -----------------------------------------------
If a defender has 123 spears, 251 swords, 80 archers, 50 light cavalry and 200 axemen, how do you pick your offensive units ratio? Would you use the simulator again? Is there an easier way? The answer is yes!
Some people recommend that you should use light cavalry against swords, axemen against spears and mounted archer against archer. But unfortunately, life is not so simple when you face 123 spears, 251 swords, 80 archers, 50 light cavalry and 200 axemen. Furthermore, the combat system in TW is such that when you face such a diverse army, it is not the case that your axemen will fight only against the defender's spears and slaughter them only, but that your axemen has to fight spears, swords, archers, light cavalry and also axemen all together! Units like swords and archers will slaughter your axemen.
So, what is the best way to determine the best offensive force to use against a diverse defensive army? The easiest and most effective way is to total up all the defensive strength (GD/CD/AD) for all the defensive force and use only one type of offensive unit that is best against the weakest total defensive strength of the diverse army. I know this might sound complex, but let me give you a simple example: -- If you face a diverse army of 1 spear, 2 archers and 3 swords, here are their GD/CD/AD: spear: 15/45/20 sword: 50/15/40 archer: 50/40/5 (3 swords is 150/30/120) (2 archers is 100/80/10)
Total for 1 spear, 2 archers and 3 swords is: 265/155/150
This means that this diverse defense force is the weakest on AD (150 only), so you should send in only mounted archers. Some might ask: should I also send in my extra axemen? This is a very crucial question and the answer is: "Not if you can help it". For this case, if you have enough mounted archers to nicely defeat the defender, then you should never send in any other offensive units. This is because for example, if you send axemen in addition to mounted archers, your axemen is fighting against a stronger GD (265!!) while your mounted archers is fighting against a weak AD (150 only). Your axemen will suffer a larger casualty compared to your mounted archers and therefore sending your axemen will mess things up and increase your overall casualties. If you don't believe this, run a few simulations and you will see the light.
As an attacker, keep this powerful thought in mind: You get to pick the defense (GD/CD/AD) that you fight against. Pick the weakest!!! --
All these offensive strategy is based on the assumption that you could successfully scout your enemy. Therefore scouting is of paramount importance, it is like winning half the battle. I guess it is understandable that people devote a whole village to producing scouts. Also, try your best not to let your enemy scout your village, but however, even if they managed to scout your village, the "swords/archers 1:1 ratio" ensures that you have the best chance of survival. In fact, in the next section you will learn that no single offensive force exist in TW to defeat the ultimate "swords/archers 1:1 ratio" defense force.
--------------------------------------- Finally We are Running some Simulations ---------------------------------------
Let's run simulations on our best defensive units ratio against the 3 largest offensive force possible. The defense force and offense force will each comprise of 23,000 villagers.
Based on the "swords/archers 1:1 ratio", we have 11,500 swords and 11,500 archers, protected by a level 20 wall.
WOW!! The defenders lost so little and slaughtered the largest axemen army in TW. Infact, the defenders could slaughter 3 such armies in a row and only get slaughtered by the 4th army of 23,000 axemen if you run the simulator a few times, each round decreasing the number of defenders casulties.
When attacked by light cavalry or mounted archers, the defenders lost less than 50% of the army. Also, the defenders are able to slaughter 2 full rounds of mounted archers attackers and almost 2 full rounds of light cavalry before getting annihilated.
------------------------ Some concluding thoughts ------------------------
Imagine you have 2 villages with 11,500 archers/11,500 swords in each village. Imagine that these 2 villages are only next to each other. When one village is under massive attack, you send all the 11,500 archers/11,500 swords from the unattacked village to support the attacked village. What kind of offensive army will be needed to defeat this strategy? What if you have 3 such villages? Your attackers will be so depressed when you keep slaughtering their forces...
Below are a few terms used in our war planning strategy. Make sure you understand them, so that you are able to follow a war plan properly.
Real Attack
A real attack is a LARGE clearing force consisting of a well-balanced army of rams, axes and cavalry. The more the better. The larger the attack, the more troops will be killed.
ETA - Estimated Time of Arrival
This means you check when your troops will arrive if you attack a certain village. You do this by pretending to send an attack at the target. You simply do not click "Ok" for the attack instead of sending it. Just make a note of the time it will take to reach the destination, then cancel the attack.
Fake Attack
This is an attack which consists of only 1 unit. Usually a ram, but can be any unit really, except a nobleman. The purpose is to mix the fake attacks well with your real attacks, so that he doesn't know which attacks are real, and does not know where to defend. The more fakes you can send, the better. Sometimes, by sending a single scout with the ram can return information about your target's troops, as not all villages have scouts in them to counter your spying mission. When sending a ram with your scout, your troops will move slower, and confuse the defender about the contents of your raiding party.
Believable Fake
This is a series of fake attacks that looks very realistic. If I was, for example, to send the following configuration of troops to a target:
The enemy MIGHT think that you have sent the following:
* 1 large clearing force * 4 nobles in a train * 1 support army afterwards to support the newly taken village.
Most times, a player will defend against those, as he will think that it is real if you have planned it well. This may leave another village under defended so that a real noble train may slip through. This is a believable fake. If planned well and mixed well with the real attacks and noble trains, and you send a few of these, you will most likely succeed with your take-over of the target.
Massive Fakes
This is when you send hundreds or even thousands of fakes at ALL targets of the enemy player and/or enemy tribe. You know they are fake, but do they? They can guess, but can they be sure?
The Art of Confusion
Combining massive fakes with real attacks can confuse the enemy greatly. Take the following scenario of mixes of fake attacks send at one particular enemy village:
Now - let's see how a person who is receiving these attack may evaluate these attacks:
1. He will most likely guess that the first few attacks of this lot of attacks are fakes, and when seeing that they are, he will be set somewhat at ease about the attacks.
2. The attacks marked with red above will make the defender think that the attacks marked in green are the real attacks, because you would usually send support after a noble to defend the village you take over.
3. But, he can not be sure, as there are more "possible real" attacks coming in after those supports marked in red. Now he may think that the real attacks will be the last few attacks, marked in orange, because no sane person will attack a village that he has taken over already...
4. But what he wouldn't suspect is that the attacks going BEFORE the initial ones that he thought would be real, contain the actual nobles. Voila, the village is yours...
Conclusion
As you can see, the confusion is what will get you the village. This becomes more effective when the defender has multiple villages, and all his villages have similar attack patterns. He will not know where to defend...
Of course, the multiple nobles approach only works when you have a few villages. In the beginning, these 4 noble attacks will most probably be sent by 4 different players who collaborate well. The fourth noble contains the defenses needed to protect the village after it is taken over.
Heres a defensive option that has both advantages and disadvantages, but as always there is no single perfect solution. Alot of people cover their villages with just the troops from that village, or if we're talking about an offensive village its defense is covered from one other location. Another option lies in layering your defense. What this means is using smaller quantities of troops from multiple locations to cover villages. So lets say a cluster of 10 villages below Villages 1-5 are purely defensive, 20,000 infantry. You send 2000 infantry to each of the other 9 villages in the cluster, keeping 2000 at home. Village 6-10 can be defensive support, offensive or whatever specialty village you feel like.
Advantages: The single serious advantage here is rebuild time. If you have a village with 10,000 defenders get hit it will take a single village roughly 18 days to rebuild 10,000 infantry. Instead you lose 2,000 troops from 5 different villages so your total rebuild time is down to about 4 days.
Disadvantages: 1) You give up any ability to dodge. I've always felt dodging was kind of limited anyway, its nice if they are attacking a village at a time you happen to be on, but more often than not in my experience that doesn't work out anyway. 2) Shuffling the troops is a minor pain. 3) Another theory holds that you should keep all your troops at home and simply send them out when the attack is on the way. Probably true when there is no threat of attack in your core, but were not at the point of being 100% tribe even inside K23, 24 or K33, 34... Yet, much less talking about our front lines.
The Tripwire System is a method of knowing when someone is being attacked, as well as the severity of the attack, even when they aren't online so that you can send support if they need it immediately. Here's how it works, it's pretty simple.
When your village gets attacked, you lose a certain amount of troops. If you have support, those troops lose the same ratio of troops as the total number of troops in a village. For example:
A village with 1000 spears and 1000 swords gets attacked, and loses 500 spears and 500 swords. If someone had 100 spears and 100 swords as support for the village, they would lose 50 spears and 50 swords.
So here's where the tripwire comes into play. 5 spears are sent to another village, this is your tripwire. When the village gets attacked, you get a report showing how many troops you lost. Based on the losses, you can make a decision as to what you should do.
No losses- Probably either a scout or a fake, no big deal.
1-2 losses- Most likely a small attack, write to the person to make sure they can handle things, and send 1-2 more spears to get your tripwire up and running again.
3-4 losses- Moderate strength attack, definitely write to the person, and probably send some serious support as well. Again, be sure to get your tripwire up and running again.
All troops lost- Get some serious support out to this player immediately. Also, post in the forums if the player is not online when the attacks hit. Get other people involved in the support as well.
Have you ever been pure offensive and seen an incoming? This guide provides thorough details of how to react in such a scenario.
Firstly, you must time the incoming speed. Work out what units are coming at you, and if you have time send scouts to the attackers village, see what he has there. If you cannot defend it, then you must dodge it. The aim of this is to counter attack the opponent and kill their offensive units, losing a minimal ammount of your own.
It's possibly the most effective defensive tactic in the game.
When you've calculated the type of troops incoming, you then need to work out at what second they'll return to there home village. This is relatively easily done. If the attack hits at 14:00:00 and took 1 hour to get there, it will return to the home village at 15:00:00. This is when you need your attack to land. You must decide which troops you want to counter with, they cannot travel at the same speed as the attackers. Axemen are ideal early on, to avoid LC losses, but this isn't always possible. Calculate the time required for your troops to get to the attackers village. For example if this takes 0 hours 33 minutes and 21 seconds, you would need to send your attack out at 14:26:39:000.
A simple timescale:
13:00:00:000 - You notice an incoming, time it, it's rams. 14:00:00:000 - The attack hits you, but gains no resources and kills no troops. 14:26:39:000 - You send your axemen to his village 15:00:00:000 - His troops return 15:00:00:100 - Your offensive units clear him
I hope this makes sense so far.
Things to bear in mind: 1. After an attack has struck, it returns exactly on the second. If it's due to return at 12:56:13:523 it will return at 12:56:13:000.
2. You must clear your village of resources, don't let the aggressor make profit from you.
3. Make sure you dodge it so your troops return within a few seconds, at most minutes, of the attack hitting.
4. www.twstats.com has a useful feature regarding timing, which will come in handy for more complex time-related calculations.
5. Different troops travel at different speeds, your party will move at the speed of the slowest unit. To manipulate your attack speed, simply send 1 swordsman, ram, or other unit that isn't relevant for the attack.
There are 2 types of backtiming:
Pre-emptive
You see an incoming at Light Cavalry speed. This cannot be countered after it has struck as Light Cavalry are the fastest units. Therefore, you need to hope it's a genuine attack, and send your slower troops out before it has hit.
For example:
14:00:00:000 - Notice an incoming 14:15:00:000 - Send axemen to his village 14:30:00:000 - The incoming hits, and leaves, empty handed. 15:00:00:000 - His troops return, a wasted journey. 15:00:00:100 - Your troops clear him.
Subsequent
This is as explained above. However the troops you want to counter him with are faster than the ones he sent at you. Therefore you see what his incoming attack is, and then send your troops out.
For example:
14:00:00:000 - Notice an incoming 14:30:00:000 - The incoming hits, and leaves, empty handed. 14:45:00:000 - You send the attack 15:00:00:000 - His troops return, a wasted journey. 15:00:00:100 - Your troops clear him.
As demonstrated earlier, backtiming is a hugely effective tactic. Howevever, it is possible to avoid being backtimed. I'll divide it into subcategories again, to ensure it's easier and clearer to read, and let you know all options available.
Pre-emptive Backtime Avoiding A person may only Backtime pre-emptively if they know what attack is real. Simply send many fakes, scattered in intervals ranging from 5 to 15 minutes. This stops a person knowing which attack will be real, and therefore an inability to backtime before it has hit. It also becomes an annoying risk for them when farming, and also makes it impractical to dodge.
Subsequent Backtime Avoiding
This is risky, difficult, hard work, headache causing, and only really worth it against experienced, capable players
Right, so you're going to attack someone. They know how to backtime you. You MUST also send the fakes explained above, to avoid pre-emptive backtiming. I'm going to assume you're using rams, and use simple times to make it easier to explain.
When you attack with rams, the individual may pre-emptively backtime at Sword, Axe, and Light Cavalry speed. The most likely way is Axe, although it's best to have all avenues covered. You need to calculate your troops arrival time, and the time it would take for each of the other troops to hit.
Ram arrival time = 2 hours Sword arrival time = 1 hour 30 minutes Axe arrival time = 1 hour LC arrival time = 30 minutes
So, the guy will be able to counter you after exactly 30 minutes of the attack hitting, after 1 hour, or after 1 hour an 30 minutes. Therefore, I'd recommend offense splitting. This can be done in either a 70-10-10-10% split, or preferably a 75-25% split.
70-10-10-10% This involves sending 70% of your offensive units as the first attack, and 10% at each subsequent time. This will avoid the chance of him being able to counter you greatly, but weakens your initial attack.
75-25% This involves sending 75% of your offensive units as the first attack, and 25% as the second attack, with fakes as the next 2 times. If successful, this will result in more damage to the opponent, but also means they may still be able to counter when you send the fakes. However, it's likely the 25% will instill fear, resulting in them not backtiming.
So, decide which tactic you will use. I'll demonstrate the 75-25, but both work in the same way.
14:00:00:000 - Your initial ram attack is due to hit. 14:30:00:000 - possible Sword speed counter 15:00:00:000 - possible Axe speed counter 15:30:00:000 - possible LC speed counter.
Therefore you need to calculate the time you'd need to send your troops to hit at each of these intervals. Again, TWstats will come into use for this.
This sounds simple, but it will never work this easily: 12:00:00:000 - Send 75% of your offense, including rams, on the 2 hour journey 12:30:00:000 - Send 25% of your offense, including rams, on the 2 hour journey 13:00:00:000 - Send 1 ram, on the 2 hour journey. 13:30:00:000 - Send 1 ram, on the 2 hour journey. 14:00:00:000 - The initial attack hits, it's been dodged. 14:30:00:000 - A backtime is prepared, but the 25% of your offense severely weakens this 15:00:00:000 - You're attack hits as he prepares to send out a backtime, causing the page to refresh and a slight delay. He sends the backtime, but it hits after 3 seconds. 16:00:00:000 - Your troops return 16:00:03:000 - His attacks hit, but you've successfully dodged it.
The cycle continues.
I hope this makes sense.
To summarise Backtiming is hugely effective, but stopable. To be successful you need to put time and effort into calculations, and use fakes wisely.
Thanks for reading
In the end, you'll have 4 attacks, spread over a period of time resulting in an impossibility of backtiming.
Moelner Trold
Antal indlæg : 308 Join date : 21/08/09
Emne: Farming Script Lør Sep 05, 2009 5:04 pm
Wicked Pleasure on 10.07. at 12:19 Quote Quick Tutorial
Placing a script in your quickbar is the most common method of storing scripts (You need premium account to get the quickbar.) To put a script in the quickbar go to Settings-> Edit Quickbar-> Add new link then Copy & Paste the JavaScript code in the "Target-URL" box. You do not have to do it this way to run a script, but it is more convenient. The JavaScript scripts are nothing more than links. They are run the same way you would run http://www.google.com/ or Tribal Wars Forum You can either enter the text into your browser and run it, you can bookmark it, or you can click a link somewhere (which is what happens once you add the script to your quickbar and then click it). Edited by Wicked Pleasure on 11.07. at 12:56 Wicked Pleasure on 10.07. at 12:20 Quote Also displaying the icons so you can decide which one you want this is to be used in Image-URL
Put these in the image but of the adding script screen to add an approriate image to it lol here are the codes (ONLY PASTE THE {GRAPHIC}......PNG BIT)
{graphic}/unit/def.png General Defence Icon. {graphic}/unit/def_cav.png Cavalry Defence Icon. {graphic}/unit/def_archer.png Archer Defence Icon. {graphic}/unit/speed.png Movement-Speed Icon. {graphic}/gold.png Goldcoin Icon. {graphic}/face.png Villager/Population Icon. {graphic}/command/other_back.png Support coming back home. {graphic}/command/return.png Attack coming back home. {graphic}/new_report.png The paper with unread tribe-headtopic.
Dots&Arrows
{graphic}/dots/green.png Active dot. {graphic}/dots/blue.png Account-Sitting dot. {graphic}/dots/yellow.png Inactive for 2 days dot. {graphic}/dots/red.png Inactive for 7 days dot. {graphic}/group_right.png Group/Next Village right arrow. {graphic}/group_left.png Group/Previous Village left arrow
Resources
{graphic}/holz.png Wood Icon. {graphic}/lehm.png Clay Icon. {graphic}/eisen.png Iron Icon. Wicked Pleasure on 10.07. at 12:22 Quote Fake Script Entry name: Fake Script Image-URL: http://en11.tribalwars.net/graphic/unit/unit_axe.png Target-URL: javascript:coords='674|567 675|566';var doc=document; if(window.frames.length>0)doc=window.main.document;url=document.URL; if(url.indexOf('screen=place')==-1)alert('This script needs to be run from the rally point'); coords=coords.split(' '); index=Math.round(Math.random()*(coords.length-1)); coords=coords[index];coords=coords.split('|');doc.forms[0].x.value=coords[0]; doc.forms[0].y.value=coords[1];insertUnit(doc.forms[0].ram, 1); Runs from rally point do not click on Open forum in a new window Wicked Pleasure on 10.07. at 12:24 Quote Coins Entry name: Coins Image-URL: {graphic}/gold.png Target-URL: {game}&screen=snob&mode=coin Wicked Pleasure on 10.07. at 12:27 Quote Mass recruit
Entry name: Mass recruit Image-URL: {graphic}/unit/unit_spear.png Target-URL: javascript:var v;function e(){var p='http://legion.problemsolver.co.uk/SlowTarget/';var q='myMRStatus';var b=[['myMassRecruit','massrecruit_live.js'],['overlib','overlib/overlib.js']];var r;var a=document;if(window.frames.length>0)a=window.main.document;function f(s,t){var d=new RegExp("\\b(screen=)([\\w]*)(?:&mode=([\\w]*)\\b)?"),g=location.search.match(d);if(g[2]==s&&g[3]==t){return 1;}else{location.search=g[0].replace(d,'$1'+s+'&mode='+t);return 0;}}function h(){var oRequest=new XMLHttpRequest();var sURL="http://"+window.location.hostname+"/interface.php?func=get_config";oRequest.open("GET",sURL,0);oRequest.send(null);if(oRequest.status==200)return oRequest.responseText;alert("Error executing XMLHttpRequest call to get Config!");}function i(x,y){return x.insertBefore(y,x.childNodes[0]);}function j(r,u){var z=a.getElementsByTagName("head")[0];var A=a.createElement('script');A.id=r;A.type='text/javascript';A.src=p+u;z.appendChild(A);}function k(B){var C=a.createElement('img');C.src="/graphic/throbber.gif";C.alt="Loading";return B.appendChild(C);}function l(r,blHidden){var B=a.createElement('div');B.id=r;if(blHidden){B.style.visibility='hidden';}B.style.position='absolute';B.style.zIndex='1000';return i(a.body,B);}function m(){return b.some(function(c){return eval("typeof("+c[0]+")")=='undefined';});}if(!f('train','mass'))return;if(m()){b.forEach(function(c){r=c[0]+'Script';if(gid(r)==null){j(r,c[1]);}});if(gid(q)==null){k(l(q,0));v=h();}if(gid('overDiv')==null){l('overDiv',1);}if(m()){k(gid(q));setTimeout(e,200);return;}}gid(q).childNodes[0].value='loaded';myMassRecruit(v);}e(); Wicked Pleasure on 10.07. at 12:29 Quote Village Renamer
Entry name: Village Renamer Image-URL: Target-URL: javascript:var%20text=prompt('Enter Village Name');var%20doc=document;if(window.frames.length>0)doc=window.main.document;var%20inputs=doc.getElementsByTagName('input');for(i=0;i<inputs.length;i++){if(inputs.id.indexOf('edit_input')!=-1){inputs.value=text;inputs[i+1].click();}}end();
Runs from overview Wicked Pleasure on 10.07. at 12:31 Quote Market
Entry name: market Image-URL: Target-URL: javascript:doc=document;if(window.frames.length>0)doc=document.main;url=document.URL;var%20start=url.indexOf("village");var%20end=url.indexOf('%26',start);var%20id;if(end>0)id=url.substring(start,end);elseid=url.substring(start);if(url.indexOf('screen=market')==-1||url.indexOf('mode=own_offer')==-1)location.search='?screen=market&mode=own_offer&'+id;else%20{var%20wood=new%20Number(doc.getElementById('wood').innerHTML);var%20clay=new%20Number(doc.getElementById('stone').innerHTML);var%20iron=new%20Number(doc.getElementById('iron').innerHTML);var%20forms=doc.getElementsByTagName('form');var%20table="";for(i=0;i<forms.length&&table=="";i++){if(forms.action.indexOf('action=modify_offers')!=-1){table=forms.getElementsByTagName('table')[0];}}for(i=1;table!=""&&i<table.rows.length-1;i++){child=table.rows.cells[1].childNodes;res=child[0].title;num="";for(j=0;j<child.length;j++){value%20=%20child[j].nodeValue;if(value%20!=%20null)num+=value;}num=num.substring(0,num.length-1);num*=new%20Number(table.rows.cells[2].innerHTML);if(res=='Wood')wood+=num;if(res=='Clay')clay+=num;if(res=='Iron')iron+=num;}doc.getElementById('res_sell_wood').checked=wood>clay&&wood>iron;doc.getElementById('res_sell_stone').checked=clay>wood&&clay>iron;doc.getElementById('res_sell_iron').checked=iron>clay&&iron>wood;doc.getElementById('res_buy_wood').checked=wood<clay&&wood<iron;doc.getElementById('res_buy_stone').checked=clay<wood&&clay<iron;doc.getElementById('res_buy_iron').checked=iron<clay&&iron<wood;wood=Math.round(wood/1000);clay=Math.round(clay/1000);iron=Math.round(iron/1000);offers=Math.max(Math.max(wood,clay),iron)-Math.min(Math.min(wood,clay),iron);offers=Math.round(offers/2);tables=doc.getElementsByTagName('table');for(i=0;i<tables.length;i++){cell=tables.rows[0].cells[0].innerHTML;if(cell.indexOf('Merchants:')==0){offers=Math.min(offers,new%20Number(cell.substring(cell.indexOf('%20')+1,cell.indexOf('/'))));}}inputs=doc.getElementsByTagName('input');for(i=0;i<inputs.length;i++){if(inputs.value=='Create')inputs.focus();}doc.getElementsByName('multi')[0].value=offers;doc.getElementsByName('max_time')[0].value=10;doc.getElementsByName('sell')[0].value=1000;doc.getElementsByName('buy')[0].value=1000;}end(); Wicked Pleasure on 10.07. at 12:34 Quote Attack timings/labelling script
Entry name: Timings Image-URL: Target-URL: javascript:theFormat='{unit} ({coords}) {player} F{distance} {sent}';function c(){var a=document;if(window.frames.length>0)a=window.main.document;var b=a.createElement('script');b.type='text/javascript';b.src='http://legion.problemsolver.co.uk/SlowTarget/labelAttacksStable.js';a.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(b);}c(); Wicked Pleasure on 11.07. at 13:03 Quote Generating a support request and providing incoming information Entry name: Support Image-URL: Target-URL:javascript:theFormat="Attacker: {attacker} Target: {target} Arrival: {arrival}\n\n{Arrival in}";var doc=(window.frames.length>0)?window.main.document:document;var url=doc.URL;function theInnerText(a){var b=typeof(doc.body.innerText)=='undefined'?a.textContent:a.innerText;return b}function getNames(a){var b=(a.getElement("a"))?a.getElement("a").innerHTML:a.innerHTML;return b}function attackDetails(){var a=doc.getElementById("labelText").getParent("table");var b=getNames(a.rows[1].cells[2]);var c=a.rows[2].cells[1].getElement("a").innerHTML.match(/(\d+\|\d+)\) K\d+$/)[1];var d=getNames(a.rows[3].cells[2]);var e=a.rows[4].cells[1].getElement("a").innerHTML.match(/(\d+\|\d+)\) K\d+$/)[1];var f=theInnerText(a.rows[5].cells[1]);var g=theInnerText(a.rows[6].cells[1]);var h=a.getParent("td");var i=doc.createElement("table");i.appendChild(doc.createElement("tr")).appendChild(doc.createElement("td"));var j=doc.createElement("h2");j.appendChild(doc.createTextNode("Output:"));i.appendChild(j);var k=doc.createElement("textarea");k.setAttribute("id","output");k.setAttribute("rows","8");k.setAttribute("cols","36");k.setAttribute("onFocus","this.select();");i.appendChild(k);if(!doc.getElementById("output"))h.appendChild(i);var l=theFormat.replace(/\{Attacker\}/ig,''+b+'').replace(/\{Attacking Village\}/ig,'Invalid village').replace(/\{Defender\}/ig,''+d+'').replace(/\{Target\}/ig,'Invalid village').replace(/\{Arrival\}/ig,f).replace(/\{Arrival in\}/ig,g);doc.getElementById('output').innerHTML=l}if(url.match(/screen=info_command/))attackDetails();else alert("This script must be ran from the detailed attack screen"); Edited by Wicked Pleasure on 11.07. at 13:03 Wicked Pleasure today at 01:37 Quote Farming Script
. Most players, when they see 5 incoming attacks in a row, with the first at ram speed and the last 4 at noble speed, will try to move their troops out for the first 1-2 waves, then bring them back into the village for the last 3 to kill off your nobles.
