ART of WAR - DEFENDING

It is unavoidable to be under attack at some point during the games. After all this is a game of war, this guides give you some idea on how to survive an attack, triump at defending, minimize damage, counter attack or perhaps even enjoying the process of defending.

#1 Avoid direct impact - Run if you can!!!
Assumming there is no demo/rams on the way, if you dont think you have enough defense to OVERWHELM the attacking force YOU CAN ALWAYS RUN!! Dont think that this is being coward, it is an act of wisdom :) . Never defends when you are not ready to, you are just wasting your troops. Save your troops for more meaningful act like counter attack or plundering. Don't worry you wont loose much compare to loosing all your troops.

How to run / fleet save?
- If you are active when the attack is hitting, just send your troops away from the city being attacked. Send them to plunder, go support a friendly city/oasis, do a scrimmage, do a quest. (Remember to send your heroes away too). Then use up your resources, go research or build something, send them to sub/friendly or trade them in market. Empty your city with no troops and resources, attacker will be wasting their times and gets nothing.
- If you saw an incoming but will not be active the the attack hits, use schedule deployment to your advantage. You still can do task or plunder with your troops before the attack and sending them away seconds before the attack is landing. If you have troops in building queue, you can schedule the the departure with existing units and then directly send some units away so that when the scheduled deployment get activated the newly build troops will be sent.

Example: you have 1000 guards and another 100 in queue. Schedule deploy 1000 guards before the attack hits. Then directly sent 100 or more away so that when the scheduled deplayment get activated you will have a max of 1000 guards meaning all will be deployed. If you dont do this, you can only sent away 1000 guards and the other 100 will be completed when the attack hits and will be dead!!

#2 Concentrate defense
If you know how much troops that enemy is sending and calculated that you have enough defend to overwhelm the enemy, go on and take the hits. Remember "Overwhelm" is the key, you wanna take the attack only if you will suffer small damage. If you calculated you will win in defending but will suffer heavy losses you might as well run (except if there are demo on the way and you are force to defend at all force).

When you defending make sure you have strong defense bonus:
-Make sure all your walls are fully upgraded and equips with all devices.
-Make sure archers are in the tower (archer is always the strongest defending units when they are in the tower, but they sucks if not in the tower. So whether your archer is in tower or not make huge defends differences)
-Weak defense units can be sent away first (example archer not in tower when tower is already full)-Use soul heroes with strong defense bonus (iron wall, encourage, archer leader..etc, check soul heroes ability in the heroes stats page here)
-Make sure you assign ranks to your general that carry defense bonus
-Use defend scroll or defend token if you have it
-Gather support from friendly/league, make sure enough food supplies. (It is alwyas good to have friendly neigbour that can help suppport each other, usually player build less def units compare to att, but if you have a few good neighbour you are combining the def units)

#3 Counter Attack
This is one of the benefit of running from an attack, so that you can use your troops to counter the attackers. Imagine this if you are equal power with the attacker and as usual both of you have less defend unit them attack unit, the attackers win!! You want to be the attacker not the defender!!

Example you have 5000 guards and 1000 heavy infantry, so does the attacker. The attacker send 5000 guards if hits you you will loose all troops and the attacker will probably still have 1k++ guards. Then he can continue to plunder you and rebuild his troops but you are doom. But if you hit him first it is the opposite. The first one to hit win!!

In order to counter an attack, it is utmost important to know the exact return time of enemy units to their city. It is usually easier to estimate in early of the games as all units is not valor yet so you know the speed of the units.

After you count the return time of the enemy troops, you can plan to counter. Even if you do not have enough troops to counter you can pass this info to your friend/leaguemates who can. The goals of counter is to make sure you hit them just when they arrived at their city and have no time to escape/fleetsave.

When you have faster troops then enemy (like when you are using wu army) you should first run from the attack then come back after the attack but make sure you come back in time to send out a counter attack that will hit enemy 1-2 s after they reach home.

When you have slower troops you can start schedul deploy your attack units to attack exactly like 1-2s after enemy attack units return. This way before enemy attack unit hits your troops is already out on the way and there is nothing enemy can do if you get the timing right.

#4 Always be prepared
You should not just think of defend when you see an incoming, fact is some time you may not see the incoming and the attack happens without your knowledge. So be prepared especially if there is wars going on.

- Get your basic defends like wall upgraded
- Build some defends units, you can share the defends units from other sub
- upgrade your units armor
- If you have idle archer station them in tower
- send you troops away when you are inactive like sleeping. you can use schedule deployment to your advantage

#5 Hide
If you are lazy to send your troops away plundering you can hide them in your oasis. But becare that your enemy may found out and hit your oasis. if that happen you will suffer more damage as oasis does not have wall defends bonus.

Hiding in friendly is another options but they need to feed your troops.

#6 Siege Attacks
When enemy send their ram/demo, you would better be defending as the building will be damaged. You will know if there is demo as demo take long time to arrive. Usually enemy will send clearing wave to hits all your troops them follow by demo to destroy your city. The best way is to fleetsave the non siege attack wave and just defend the siege attack. However it may be difficult if the attacker is also pro at attacking and leave no room to intercept the demo squad. In this case you will need to gather support to defend all the wave.

#7 Recovering from attack 
If unfortunately all defense failed and you have being cleared but still want to continue with the game you need to recover your troops and important buildings. You will also need to protect your resources from being plundered by enemy. It will be a hard journey to recover but not impossible especially if you have good team mate to help you keep the enemy busy.

- Build hidden warehouse to keep your resources, use bronze shovel to increase the hidden warehouse effect if you have it. If you are still actively being plundered, you may want to demo your warehouse/granary first while slowly upgarde them to match your hidden warehouse capacity, this way enemy get nothing out of you and may stop the attack
- Build bunker to hide your troops
- Build troops and send them to friendly city or hide in your oasis, best time to use auto deploy in you have it
- Recall your heroes and send them away to support friendly city first if there are still incoming attacks
- Build a small plundering troops first to help speed up your resources
- Only call back and use your troops once they hit critical mass, no point building small troops size and get hit by enemy, it will just help them increase their attack ratings
- If enemy determine to demo you to dust after clearing you..the only way out is to get help from friendly.. or if you have capital move token, go fly to a safe area and rebuild from there

Art of WAR - Attacking

WAR

This is a war game, it is not sim city for god sake. DO NOT just focus on increasing the population or number of your city, you wont go far without a war plan.

"Know thy and know the enemy you will win in all you battle..." Sun Tze 

It is utmost important to understand yourself and also the enemy in a battle be if attacking or defending if you want to excel in the battle field ;)

"A good general make enemy dont know how to attack, A good general make enemy dont know how to defend..."

Master the art of war then even with lesser population or lesser troops, you still can win over your stronger opponent as they have no idea how to attack you and how to run from your attack.

Attacking

"Know thy and know the enemy you will win in all you battle..." Sun Tze

- Always scout your enemy if you want to increase your chances of success, your enemy may have stronger force in their city than you expected.
- After getting enemy information, calculate the troops you need to win, refer to battle calculation write ups. :)
- Understanding enemy units and their weakness. During an attack only defense of enemy units count. IF enemy has weaker infantry defense then send more infantry units for eample.
- Always attack with strong attacking force, differentiate which is your attacking/defending units. Bring you attacking units only. DO NOT attack with defense units.

"Attack your enemy when they are unprepared, show up where you were never expected.."
- Attacking an active player is not as easy as you imagine :), you will see what I mean after you gone through the defending section.
- Attacking is different then plundering, when you attack, you want to make sure that you HIT and destroy your enemy, leave them no chance to run.
- To avoid enemy running from your attack, attack when enemy not prepared, dont let them expect your attack
 
Sneak Attack

- If you know where your enemy is located (time zone), attack in their sleep and let them wake up with all their troops gone.. heheheh, time your attack to happen at 3-5am of their time (use schedule deployment to your advantage). They will probably be sleeping at that time and cant run from the attack. Yeah this is evil...heheheheh
** Only efficient if enemy is <4 hours away, example if you want to hit enemy 4 hours away at 5am, your attack will start 1am, if it is further away your attack need to deploy earlier when enemy still awake so it may not work 
- If enemy is near (<45 mins). Use the server maintenance time to your advantage. Work best if enemy is 30+ mins away. Example if you want to hit someone 35 mins away, deploy your attack units 2.5mins before server maintenance time of 04:00. Chances are your enemy may not notice your attack before server went to maintenance mode, and usually players wont rejoin just after server maintenace. So your attack operation is totally stealth, covered by server maintenance, enemy will not know what hit them... hehehehe.. butt remember attack cannot happen during server maintenance time so deploy wisely so it does not happen between 4:00 and 4:30 server time.
- If enemy is far, use smoke screen to hide your attack. Send fake attack, get your league member to join in the fun. Cover your real attack in between your fake attack. Enemy will not know which is the real attack. They can run, but they can't run forever. ... this is so cruel.. hehehe
- If this is a league war, send fake attack to few of nearby enemy league city to cover your real target, this way they will not know who is your main target and not sure how to support each other. If you just send your attack to one city. Nearby enemy could send in reinforcement which will make you suffer more casualty.

Ambush - show up where enemy never expected
 
- Check enemy surrounding for farms, when you identify them, send defend troops to their farms. Usually players send small troops out for plundering from time to time. When their plundering units hit the farms with your defend troops in it they will suffer massive damage due to the unexpected troops. This will interrupt enemy resources supply as well as they will be scared to plunder for while not knowing if you have ambush on other farms.
** Sending huge defends troops to enemy farms may need to be followed by sending food to the farms as well. As the farms may not be able to support your troops and your troops will run if ran out of food on enemy farms.
- Send support troops to a weaker member. Use the weaker member to taunt enemy into sending attack. Make sure you cover the support troops by having huge number of scouts in your city. Unexpecting enemy will suffer huge damage. Example you can send in few k defend unit to a 300++ pop city and then use the 300++ pop city to send some attack to an enemy with 700++ pop. Enemy may strike back wanted to punish the attacker for their stupid act.. but when the battle report came back they will realize who is being stupid... hehehehhe... another evil plan
 
Cut Enemy Supply
 
- In prepartion to destroy your enemy you may want to stop them from growing faster. One way to do is is cut their supply.
- Share their farm, sent plundering units frequently to their farms if you are nearby. 
- If you cant plunder enemy farm frequently, burn their farms.. heheheh.. send your demo, demolish the warehouse and granary on enemy farms.. leave them with no resources.
 
** Disclaimer: I am not an evil man, this is just a game strategy.. but i do enjoy to see this strategy works on enemy.. hehehheh

Occupying County

What is a county

Counties are special cities in the game that have very high resources output and a huge troops capacity. Once occupied player will have ~4.5-5.5k resources per hour and able to build army quick with level 20 barrack, stable and scout camp. It is a must have for anyone desire to excel in the game.

Below is a screenshot of a sample county. You can identify county by its colour - Blue. Purple colour city is state capital which will not be covered here.



County City Structure & Resources Field

County Attribute:
- 1000-1500 population
- Full city with all level 20 building and Walls (except Ironworks)
- 6 Farms city with limit of lv19 Farms, and Lv14 on other resources field
- Guarded by 15000 Wei Troops. (10000 Swordsman + 5000 Heavy Infantry at lvl 20)
- Can't trade from the city
- You can transport resource to it but not transport resources out of it
- Cannot build ram/demolisher
- Can only send limited troops at a time base on rank.. example viscount can only sent one troops at a time

How to occupy a county
- Anyone can occupy a county by eliminating all the troops in the county
- There is no pre-requirement
- You need to send huge amount of troops to eliminate the 15000 guarding troops
- After sucessful occupy the county need to prepare huge amount of defense troops to prevent others from stealing it from you.
- Yes anyone can take the county from you if they manage to defeat you, county ownership is not permanent, you must guard it after occupying it.


** Below is theorethical calculation, if you have battle report please verify if the calculation is correct


How much troops is needed to accupy the county
- Base on the battle damage calculation, 15k troops in the county represent :
infantry defense
(10000 x 35 + 5000 x 65) + 30% lv20 armor bonus = 877500
calvary defense
(10000 x 50 + 5000 x 35) + 30% lv20 armor bonus = 877500

Lets say you have lvl 20 Guardsman (+30%) with 10% hero bonus
You need to send in at least 877500/(1.4 x 70) = 8954 Guardsman

Lets say you have lvl 20 Qing Calvary (+30%) with 10% hero bonus
You need to send in at least 1437550/(1.4 x 180) = 3482 Qing Calvary

** Hero Bonus use here is just an example, hero bonus come from player's rank, hero leadership, skillbook, attack token, battle formation, scrolls, etc.... recommendation is to make sure you send high attack bonus hero to minimize your troop lost
- It may be hard for an individual to come out with the troops to take down a county by himself in the beginning, but the most effective way is a single player sending a strong troops to attack
- You still can collaborate among league member to send in waves of attack, but the total troops required will be much more.

Example:
- A single strong player may be able to take down the county by sending 4k lv 20 Qing Calvary with a strong hero with many attack bonus.
- Multiple player need to send at least 5-6 waves of 1k lvl20 Qing calvary (refer to battle damage calculation for the benefit of sending one huge troops vs few small troops)

Stealing a county

Here come the fun parts. If you are not strong enough to take down the NPC in the county but still dying to get a piece of the county, STEAL it!!!! 
 
As mentioned above county ownership is not permanent, anyone that successfully kill all the troops in the county of other player own the county. 
 
Usually after taking down the county, the occupying player is at weakess time, because he would have suffer huge losses killing all the NPC. Once someone take over a county, the time start ticking, as the occupying player would have call fro support from his league member and start building lv20 defense troops  in the county. Anyway all these take time, so the sooner you attack the more advantage you have. If you wait longer the county will become strong and all the reinforcement may have arrive.
 
If you determine to steal a county, do it as soon as someone got in. Send full force to attack and get ready your defense support... as others may be stealling from you if you suceeded ;) 
 
Anyway, stealing a county from someone can only mean one thing....... WAR!!! So good luck and get ready for the fun... lol (Dont say i never warned you about this)

Battle Damage Calculation

There are 2 types of attack mode:
- Destroy Mode
- Plunder Mode

During any battle, ONLY the attack power of attacker and defense power of defender impact the results of battle.

Destroy mode
This mode will results in either the attacker or defender force to be totally eliminated.

Damage Calculation:
If Attacker Win
Defender Troops Eliminated, meaning left 0%
Attacker troops lose = (Attack power/Defense power) ^ 1.5

Defense power is a mixture of Infantry and Calvary defense base on attacking units.

Example:
** Calculation below is base on no attack or defense bonus (like Wall, Heroes skill, ranking, unit level..etc)

Attacker: 200 Glaiveman (Attack = 60)+ 200 Lancer (Attack = 55)
Defender: 100 swordman (Inf Def 35 Cal Def 50) + 100 Heavy Infantry (Inf Def 65 + Cal Def 35 )

Total Attacking power = 200 x 60 + 200 x 55 = 23000
Total Inf Def = 100 x 35 + 100 x 65 = 10000
Total Cal Def = 100 x 50 + 100 x 35 = 8500

Since the attacker consist of 200 Infantry and 200 Calvary
Effective Def = [(200 Inf/400 Total Att Units) x 10000 Inf Def] + [(100 Cal/400 Total Att Units)x8500)] = 9250

Attacker 23000 > Def 9250 so attacker win
Defender lose 100 swordsman 100 heavy Infantry (ALL)
Attacker lose (9250/23000)^1.5 = 25.5%
Attacker lose 51 Glaivemen 51 Lancer

What if you send 100 Glaiveman + 100 Lancer in the beginning.
Attack power = 11500 > 9250 (Attacker still win)
Defender stilll lose all units
Attacker lose (9250/11500)^1.5 = 72.1%
Attacker lose 72 Glaivemen 72 lancer
Attacker Casualties will be increased

What if you send 400 Glaiveman + 400 Lancer in the beginning.
Attack power = 46000 > 9250 (Attacker still win)
Defender still lose all units
Attacker lose (9250/46000)^1.5 = 9.0%
Attacker lose 36 Galivemen 36 lancer
Attacker Casualties will be reduced

As you can see, always attack with more troops to reduce your casualties.

Plunder Mode
The only difference with destroy mode is that it does not eliminate loser forces. This mode minimize the casualties from a battle.

To estimate the battle losses first calculate base on destroy mode. Take the example above, casualties for winning side (attacker) is 25.5 % under destroy mode.

Now under plunder mode with the same attack units.

Winner casualties = 25.5/(100 + 25.5) = 20.3%
Loser sasualties = 100 - 20.3 = 79.7 %

Using previous example, under plunder mode
Attacker win
Attacker lose 41 Glaivemen + 41 Lancer
Defender lose 80 swordman + 80 Heavy Infantry