Attack Strategies

Originally posted by RudyW
I wanted to create a thread for this subject. After today's actions we absolutely need to have more of an open discussion on the topic.

Tip #1: If you have a War Minister you can schedule army departures. For those of you willing to spend diamonds and support EA this is a great option which can allow a group of attackers to better coordinate their actions. In today's example, we could have had scouting reports performed every hour on the hour against Doosh and known by morning that he had received reinforcements. The alternative is to wake up early (depending on your time zone) and manually send them. This convenience absolutely may be worth the $1 to execute.

Tip #2: The Assault attack option is a one-time strike whose primary purpose is to attack and destroy enemy troops. Surviving assaulting troops will also plunder resources on their way back. However, if the enemy has a sufficient defense the majority of your assaulting troops will fight to their death. Use caution when deploying this order.

Originally posted by HolyFather
Word of caution:
Assault attack can be very costly if you do not have overwhelming force. A castle that hasn't been sieged really gives the defender big advantages. 1) By reducing your force up to 50% with towers and 2) By increasing defending units strength by 100%.

If you fail, you can be bitch slapped by a counter attack. It's a risk and rebuilding army takes a very long time if you do not have significant production bonuses.

If you do wish to proceed with an assault, time it so your army arrives to destination before night protection kicks in (*pay very close attention*, night protection kicks in server's time zone, not your own). This will give you a 60% defense bonus from immediate counter attacks. So even if your assault was a disaster you're much safer and can hope for support attacks to arrive to help you by morning from allies. It also gives you a small chunk of time to beef up your defenses.

I haven't been involved in any military actions so far, but from what I've seen it seems that:

Cavalry make the best assault armies since they move twice as fast and so can assault twice as often. Warlocks are best, except that they take so much longer to build than knights.

Berserkers make the best siege armies since they're incredibly fast to build and you don't care about speed (your baron and any rams will set your speed). I question whether siege engines are worth the effort considering how slow they are to build and their headcount.

Naval assault and siege seems horribly expensive. I'd be inclined to avoid it where possible.

It also seems to me that Castled cities should be self-sufficient in food, because if someone besieges it while your army it away you won't be able to ship food in and your army will starve.

And, of course, don't forget to leave a defensive army at your military city while your offensive army is out making merry.

Of course, if you have more than 1 town (which you should before castling) you can always send the armies from there to support your castled towns.

Just make sure you build enough hideouts to protect you from plunders

Right.

I was thinking 3 resource towns, then 1 or 2 non-castled military towns to field a defensive army, then a full-blown castled military town to field an offensive army.

The defensive army then focuses on defending your one castled town, while the offensive army runs around attacking whoever seizes its fancy.

Then repeat to scale up.

I am finally coming out of the turtle shell. I have my first Military City set up, and it's been cranking out zerks. I'm probably up to about 10K at the moment, depending on how long the current down time is. I have about 800 scouts. I have about 10K of Paladins and mobile archers to come in from other towns for defense. Here are my questions.

1) How many scouts should I have to make sure that I have an effective scouting mission? I assume after I have a scouting mission, that I can get better advice.

2) What other troops do I really need? I assume some artillery/rams, but how much, what is the ratio?

3) Do I go straight for a siege, or should I attack a couple of times first.

4) I plan on having my defenses in place before I Castle, but what would be the minimal recommendation.

5) What does the castle do for me again, besides let me attack? Should I plan to level that up quickly as soon as I build the first one?

I plan on attacking Mystic from the "Rebels" alliance, not the "Rebel Alliance" alliance. There are only 2 Rebels on C43, and he has a 7K and a 4K castle near me, so that seems like a good place to start.

Any information/advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Maggot

A couple different things here. At the end stages of the game, and right now in all likelihood, feints become the most vital part of the game. Knowing an attack is coming is one thing, knowing when it arrives is another thing entirely. If you send an all Cav attack, in all likelihood the recipient can anticipate with a heavy Guardian defense. As you begin attacking people with multiple cities, be sure to feint attacks at them that include the slowest troops as well. What you want them to do is guess as to what your group composition is, and especially when you are going to be sending a Baron. I don't know if anything moves just as slow as a Baron, so that point may be moot, but mixing units can benefit you greatly for breaking defenses or spreading their defenses thin. Perhaps you all are already doing this, I am not 100% certain.

Yeah, another thing is to also just spam them with false attacks all over the board as well. Even just 1 unit will work.

Finally, this is a big thing for those with low troop strength, try to group up and attack targets together. Otherwise EA or anyone else we're at war with, will be able to easily pick off your army. For example, attacking a city with 10000 TS army is great, but the defenders can easily gang up on you and take it out. Whereas if a few people with 10000 TS attack the same city, it is much harder to to defend against that.

Xalara/Sofhos

Thanks for the strategy. But it still leaves me with questions.

1) I know we need to worry about Night Time protection, but when should you start a siege to try to avoid any night time protection?

2) Should you attack several times first, or should you start the siege right away, if you only have one town to attack from?

3) Should I wait until I see what the defenders are composed of before I can ask the question?

4) What would you consider a descent sized scout force? 200? 1000? 10000? scouts?

5) If I want to try to keep the city intact as much as possible, should I avoid using siege engines? Or do I really need them to make the siege succeed at all?

6) Should I send two Barons with the siege to try to make sure that one survives to the end of the siege? I assume if you have one and it dies, that you have to start the siege all over.

Maybe what might help would be examples of attacks that people have made. Thinking on these points:
a) How many scouts did you send at first?
b) What did the city look like before?
c) How many and what kinds of attacks did you send?
d) What did your siege force look like?
e) When did you attack?
f) How long did the siege take?
g) What did the city look like after you attacked?

Again any answers to these or the previous questions would be greatly appreciated.

1) night protection ends at 10:00 am server time. (Starts at 22:00?)

2) 1-2 Assaults first then siege. If you have minister then set arrive for assaults 10:00, 10:01 and siege 10:02 for example. lets say you have 30k zerks, send 10k-12k twice, then rest for the siege.

3) Allway better, if you can mix attack force, like zerks + knights / mages. You penetrate defenses better.
Edit: Barons needs infantry with them, otherwise they die. Cavalry wont protect barons.

4) Dont know much for scouting, but i think you need few hundred, confirms? depends on enemy scouts + defenses

5) You should use at least rams to break walls and towers to lower the defense. Catapults destroy only buildings.

6) Never hurts to send 2 barons. If 1 baron dies during siege and you dont have another, then city claim % drops to zero, if you have another, it continues to claim the city. It takes 10h minimum to claim the city. Im not sure about this, so somebody can confirm.

Hi Maggot/Olavi,

1) Night protection is 20% from 22:00 to midnight, 40% from midnight to 08:00, 20% from 08:00 to 10:00. It is best to time a siege to start from 10AM if you want to prevent any night protection. On the other hand, if you know that he has few troops, having the siege on earlier (regardless of night protection) prevents him from building many troops later. Click here for the official wiki on night protection.

2) I say it depends. If there is already a large force sitting there, a couple of assaults will soften them up first (and increase the chances of your baron surviving). If their forces are weak, just siege them. This is because assaults alert them to hostility and they will start building forces. A quick siege sometimes catches them off guard and the siege will keep their numbers down afterwards. Of course, don't forget to keep reinforcing your siege by sending more troops as you build them.

3) Intel always helps. I prefer to scout first for someone who is on par or stronger than me to get an understanding of their troop makeup. But for someone weaker, sometimes you can just attack them with a huge force with relatively little danger. It would certainly help you decide what to do for the previous question.

4) For scouts, probably not a lot. I think people avoid building scouts because they are generally worthless so you probably won't need a lot to do the job. I suggest a scout force of about 500. Any more and you/your opponent are probably wasting troop strength.

5) Olavi is right, build a lot of rams. They destroy only defensive buildings but leave the rest of the city intact. Of course, if you find that your opponent can recoup troops faster than you would like him to, then send catapults to slow his production down.

6) Again Olavi is right: more barons is better. It insures that if you lose a baron (or more), you won't lose the progress on the claim.

Olavi/Pacifism

Thank you both very much, that was what I was looking for! Looking forward to my first upcoming attack.