[quote = Dean *H*]
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How to pick the ultimate defensive units ratio?
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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?
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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?
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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.
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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:
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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
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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?
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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:
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axemen:
villagers: 1
offensive strength: 40
villagers/performance ratio: 40/1 = 40
light cavalry:
villagers: 4
offensive strength: 130
villagers/performance ratio: 130/4 = 32.5
mounted archer:
villagers: 5
offensive strength: 120
villagers/performance ratio: 120/5 = 24
--
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 axemen = 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.
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How to pick the ultimate offensive units ratio?
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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:
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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 150/45/120)
(2 archers is 100/80/10)
Total for 1 spear, 2 archers and 3 swords is: 265/165/150
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!!!
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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.
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Finally We are Running some Simulations
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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.
23,000 axemen vs 11,500 archers/11,500 swords (level 20 wall):
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Attacker: 23,000 axemen
Attacker casulties: 23,000 axemen
Defender: 11,500 archers/11,500 swords
Defender casulties: 2,765 archers/2,765 swords
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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.
5,750 light cavalry vs 11,500 archers/11,500 swords (level 20 wall):
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Attacker: 5,750 light cavalry
Attacker casulties: 5,750 light cavalry
Defender: 11,500 archers/11,500 swords
Defender casulties: 4,962 archers/4,962 swords
--
4,600 mounted archer vs 11,500 archers/11,500 swords (level 20 wall):
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Attacker: 4,600 mounted archer
Attacker casulties: 4,600 mounted archer
Defender: 11,500 archers/11,500 swords
Defender casulties: 4,254 archers/4,254 swords
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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.
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Some concluding thoughts
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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.
AshytheGreat said:
Really genius, but I have a few things to comment on on this...
For one, I don't believe total defense matters AT ALL. The same things and more can be obtained from each individual defense.
And I disagree with your classification
10 - 20: poor
20 - 30: average
30 - 40: good
40 - 50: excellent
Now, the way I worked it out
GD/CD/AD must be greater than or equal to 40/32.5/24, because those are the offensive strength per farm space of those offensive units.
Number of Spearman = a
number of Swords = b
number of archers =c
so
(15a + 50b + 50c) / a + b + c >= 40
(45a + 15b + 40c) / a + b + c >= 32.5
(20a + 40b + 5c) / a + b + c >= 24
a + b + c = pick a number (call it d)! This is a proportion you need to get, so it doesn't matter which number you pick.
then solve
out of d troops, a/d should be spears, b/d should be swords, c/d should be archers.
But when I tried to solve, something happens...
haven't got the answer yet, would appreciate if someone would help
Or maybe theres no solution...
AshytheGreat said:
Oh, and the 1 - 2 - 3 problem. I know you were just giving an example,
but when you pick it apart,
a) 1000 Spear, 2000 Archer, 3000 Sword vs. 1200 MC
OR
b) 1000 Spear, 2000 Archer, 3000 Sword vs. 1500 LC
a) Attack fails.
b) 1221 or 81 % die.
And axeman obviously fail miserably.
Reason for this is: AD defense 150/6 = 25 while Mounted Archers are only 24 offense.
CD = 165/6 = 27.5, weaker than the 32.5 offense of LC.
Skipped a few posts in the middle praising his way... but here it is!
The drawback in this is that swrodsmen/archer uses the most resources as well as the most time to build... if you are at war, you'd probably be better off building spears and HC...
This is mostly theoretical; I have no experience and claim no experience...
.
