Early game strategies part 1
These strategies assume you have already have begun one of the strategies listed in the first few days strategies.
Spear production
[SPOIL]This consists to produce only spears on your barrack for a while. It is an explanation of the sentence (produce spears and begin farming). There is no exact numbers of spears to produce however many of the players have their own number of spears after they played a bit. Around 18 to 40 for each barb in your 7x7 is pretty much a standard if you are active and a bit less if you are less active. Some people tend also, if they play very accurately and are able to send a lot of farming runs during the day to exceed these numbers by farming outside their 7x7 before the beginner protection is off. (see early farming strategies for further details) This can be mixed with
Swords escorting,
Sword addition,
Early defence strategy,
spiking, any
market strategy,
axes escorting and
Light cavalry rush. It is really popular in the early stages.[/SPOIL]
Point-whoring strategy
[SPOIL]The point-whoring strategy consists to simply add buildings only to gain points. The players wants to keep high ranks when using this strategy but it leads to their downfall in the rankings later on. Why? They neglect their income. Instead of building troops or more mine levels or getting other useful buildings they build some of these:
Market too early slows down your growth; build it only if you’re using a market strategy.
Wall too early, you only need it out of the beginner protection and many players don’t build it anyway.
Hiding place, useful in some precise occasions but not during the beginner protection
Smithy too early, you only needs it when you want to add some new units and have already some spears and your paladin.
High mines, emphasize on farming even if it gives less points.
Unneeded HQ barrack and stable levels (Most of these buildings early on aren’t needed since you have not the income to keep them working 24 hours a day. You can upgrade them if you see your producing too many resources and can’t build things fast enough.
Unneeded Farm and warehouse level (if your farm or your warehouse isn’t full, you don’t need to upgrade them yet unless you plan it will overflow)
Some players also call them sim-city players.[/SPOIL]
Early farming Strategies
[SPOIL]
Paladin farming: Your paladin will not die, even if he attacks alone, against villages with absolutely no troops and wall. Bonus and barbarian village usually have no troops and have really low wall to no-wall during the first few days. This being said, don’t be afraid to send him alone. He also walks faster than your spears so, sending him alone is the way to farm with your paladin. You can also use it with as a scout since you do not have any. He gathers the same information as any units but he walk fast and is cheap to rebuild. You can find out spiked villages, resources balances and if a village is empty or not.
Farming with spears: Once you have 4 spears, send them with your paladin on your farming runs. Your paladin, even slowed down, allow some spears to farm and upgrade your income. Spears alone will die! If there is no paladin in your world, 7 is the minimum for the first farming run. Later on you can start escorting with other troops your spears. (in fact, 5 is the strict minimum but with 5 or 6 spears, you actually lose wood (and may lose clay as well with only 5 spears. Since you need wood, 7 should be the minimum.)) Depending on the situation, it is a really good idea also sometimes to wait for a few more spears before sending your first farming run.
Outdated with version 7.0 What to do with your single spear at home? Well, you can easily, during the beginner protection try to attack your neighbours to find out at which time they’re own beginner protection is off. Now even non-premium account can see when a beginner protection ends.
The end of the beginner protection: Note this time and plan your farming trips to be able to farm the inactive players at the moment their beginner protection is off. This will give you full hauls if you are the first one to attack them.
When you reach 32-35 spears you have the chance to send them alone (without the paladin or any units) without having one dying (depending on the luck). At this point, especially if you are still getting full hauls, sending your spears alone and your paladin alone should be your regular farming trips. If you feel however you need an escort, keep your paladin with them or use the strategy
Sword escorting or
Axes escorting.
When beginner protection begins to end, you can usually dry an inactive player village with 102 spears, sending more than this is not needed.
Farming with fewer troops (with escorts if needed) at more villages if they are dry allow you to optimize your income from farming.[/SPOIL]
Barbarian note
[SPOIL]This is not truly a strategy, just a few notes in case you want to know and plan ahead on your farming.
In some worlds (list here) barbarians do not grow.
When they do, the barbarians queue a random building after a certain amount of time if they reached the requirement for it. They also stop growing at a maximum size defined by the world settings.
Barbarians usually appear now at a certain rate based on how much players are joining or restarting on the world.[/SPOIL]
Rim expanding, tip to help you get near your friends
[SPOIL]The rim expands also at a certain rate. In the first 3 to 6 hours of a world usually, the main core is being formed and after that, the rim (which is the border if the circle) begins to expand. It expands faster when more people are joining and the world meaning that after 1 or 2 weeks usually, we reach the peak of the rim expanding since many players joins the world early. It continue to expand but gets slower and slower until the world is set for no restarting possible which may take some time and happens after a world has closed after new registrations. A map of a world map is basically this. Auto-updating map for .net exists on each world on the main forums.
Now tip to get near your friends!
By experience and logic these are what I conclude. First, of course, you can all choose the same direction to join in. But besides that, if you time yourself to join on the early rim (or semi-core if you prefer) it is the best moment to join since the possibilities for locations are smaller. (Usually around 5-7 hours after the start of the world) Also, wait a few minutes between eachother, (I usually do a bit less than 5) and you may be even luckier. Since you are placed randomly on the quarter you chose, other people are joining and they need to equally grow the rim, usually 2 players joining within the same second are not placed near eachother. (Needs more testing) After this, the core is a really good option and while the rim expands, smaller are the chances to join near eachother.[/SPOIL]
Warehouse and Farm
[SPOIL]During all the early stage you will have to incorporate a few farm and warehouse levels to be able to avoid overflowing of resources and need farm space. You can plan ahead with your hauls and with the population value of each unit (all the info you need exist in the help section in game). Do not upgrade it higher until you feel you would need to.[/SPOIL]
Market Rush
[SPOIL]Statue +paladin (if there is no paladin in this world, don’t even try it...)
wood 1
clay 1
wood 2
(level 3, 4 wood is optional, level 2 clay also)
warehouse 2
market 1
Use wood to gain 2x the amount of iron on the market.
Well, this strategy is one of the worse ones to use in early stages (and should’ve been include in the
first few days strategies but it is so rare that I just decided to explain it with the other market strategies). By doing this you actually are short in Iron and need to use your wood (which you would need to use for spears in fact) to get that iron you need. I never saw anyone but me trying this (I was testing) and in more than 99% of the cases, it slows you down a lot.
However if you are interested in hearing a bit more about this, I cared to explain how it could benefit the player using this (I may still be wrong in my calculations but I think they are right) and what would be needed to make it work in this thread (beginning at post 11).
http://forum.tribalwars.net/showthread.php?t=216058&highlight=market+strategy [/SPOIL]
Market Strategy
[SPOIL]Warehouse lvl 2
Market lvl 1
Store a surplus of iron (do an offer 1000 iron for 2000 wood with 1 hour range by example)
This strategy is used by many active players since the production of spears creates a surplus of iron. If you don’t want to spend your resources too much on your warehouse to get more troops to raise your income let’s say and you have soon a resource that will exceed your warehouse capacity, use this strategy. It is worth pretty much the same as a warehouse lvl 5 in carrying capacity but only for 1 resource. You can get more market level to gain more storage capacity. Of course the warehouse is better than the market for storing resources but at the very early stage it has his benefits. This strategy can be easily mixed with pretty much any strategy you are using but especially with those:
Spear production,
Market Rush,
Market addition,
Swords escorting,
Early defence strategy and
Light cavalry rush. It is the main purpose of having a market before the end of the beginner protection.[/SPOIL]
Market Addition
[SPOIL]Warehouse lvl 2
Market lvl 1 (more levels will be added in the future)
Other than use your market to store, you can actually use it for trading... If you are less active you will get your market after the beginner protection is off probably since before this, trading is pretty rare. If you have resources you do not need, or need some resources, the market can make a difference. Top players do not only use troops to gain resources, they also seek offers on the market. If you find offers with ratios lower than 1, consider taking some even if you have plenty of resources and don’t need a particular kind currently. (You also need a market lvl 10 for the academy as a minimum) This strategy can be mixed with pretty much any other strategies and is very popular; most players do have a market.[/SPOIL]
Swords Escorting
[SPOIL]Headquarters 4
Headquarters 5
Smithy lvl 1 (swords should be researched, or lvl 1)
Build a few swords to escorts spears group.
This consists on building a few swords (1 to 5 usually per groups of 20-35 spears) to send with your spears to avoid having any spears dying during the farming runs (and can free up your paladin to farm alone). Especially if you have an Iron surplus even bigger than usual, going for sword escorts can be a good choice. It does not always stops you rushing light cavalry, far from that; it helps you getting resources faster. The downside of this strategy is simply that the swords slow down your spear group since they walk slowly. However, you also have to take into consideration his hauling capacity is bigger than the axemen. I strongly suggest not mixing the
sword escorting during the beginner protection with the
Axe escorting, choosing one or the other. Here, the beginner protection should still be on if you plan to use this strategy to his maximum benefits (sooner the better) but as long as you have full hauls with spears there should be no rush going for swords. However, you can also use it after the beginner protection according to which villages you are farming and if you already have swords from your beginner protection. Players planning to play defensively often use the swords for escorts. This strategy can be easily mixed with the
Early defence strategy and the
Spiking. This technique is used by many players and is quite popular, especially on really early worlds.[/SPOIL]
Spiking
[SPOIL](It should be a follow up of the
Sword escorting strategy)
Build a few more swords than needed for farming. (10 to 15 can pretty much be enough)
Then, still during the beginner protection, send some swords (some send spears and the paladin also) to support barbarians or bonus village having the goal to kill the spears of your neighbours. (the verb to spike is what we use in game for this technique)If you plan to do this, consider you aren’t getting any profit temporarily with the goal of having a few more resources later on by farming more than your neighbours since you would have logically more troops. This strategy is far from having a consensus between the TribalWars community, many players do say it slow you down, many others do say it is profitable but there is no real answer that has proven without any doubt that in every circumstances it slows you down. It is used only in really early stage most of the time and is popular enough to be part of the core early stage gameplay in your planning sometimes. Use this tactic only if you have some experience in early game and know what you are doing. See this thread for further details:
My other tip is, spiking a village already spiked may be better than spiking a village non spiked in some scenarios, 1 you have less losses if the other troops are there and 2, the player who spiked the village may withdraw his own troops to farm this village and finish by hitting a spike also.[/SPOIL]
Early Defence strategy
[SPOIL](It should be a follow up of the
Sword escorting strategy)
Wall lvl 1 to 5
Build more swords than needed for farming (10 to 15 can work as a minimum), later you use this, the more troops and wall levels you will need.
This strategy consists on trying to kill enemy troops directly when the beginner protection if off easily without too much losses. The best conditions to use this is if theres a few players with alot of spears but almost nothing else in your area and if these players are less experienced or noobs. It also can be mixed with the
Turtling strategy. Make them angry, mail them, send a fake attack of 2 spears saying you would farm them to look stupid, etc... Use what you want to make him attack you. Be prepared with a wall level and swords (and spears if you wish) to defend against those small spears attacks.
Comments: Why should we doing this? In some precise cases, killing your neighbours troops either to avoid them stealing resources from nearby barbarians or inactive players from you or avoid them getting too strong can be a good strategy if you can manage to suffer very low losses. (Plan ahead if you want to try this and use the simulator before trying a defence) However, in most case, this investment in defence could slow you down and not give all the benefits from it you would like to. Also, against experienced and intelligent players, this strategy will probably not work. It is a rare tactic and far from being properly used in most cases. I recommend, especially if you are a new player, to read
How to properly defend at start-up.[/SPOIL]
Early defence strategy (addition for archers)
[SPOIL]Barrack 2
Barrack 3
Barrack 4
Barrack 5
Smithy 2
Smithy 3
Smithy 4
Smithy 5
Research archers
Wall lvl 1 to 7-8
Build as many archers as you want (I haven’t made enough tests here to specify precise numbers and would appreciate feedback if never anyone has tried this)
This can also be used on archer worlds adding the archers to your defense. A real
Turtle would use this on archer worlds and this can be mixed with
the Light cavalry addition. In a long beginner protection, this can be an alternative for defensive players and still approach you to light cavalry which should be your goal if you mix your village with offense and defence. Note that there is no specific order for the smithy and barrack levels. Often, experienced players will try to build smithy levels if they know they won’t have the resources to queue more buildings for quite some times or barrack levels if they know they have the resources to keep their HQ working. Building the barrack first allows you to produce soldiers faster but you may be low on resources anyway. From what I know, this tactic is really rare even if with common sense many players would know how to do it.[/SPOIL]
Intimidation
[SPOIL]Intimidation is a big part of the game and is often under-rated or not used properly and correctly. The first step to any defence in early stage is often your size, your troops and some awards proving you have troops and use them. Any regular player will think twice before attacking a big and strong player and sometimes, top players do not in fact receive incomings for a while. However, do not try to mix the
point-whoring strategy with this, it is really dangerous and if you are discovered being a point-whore, no matter your size, everyone will try to steal your resources. Being also polite, funny and not acting like an idiot can save you in many cases many problems, especially for your long term defense and reputation. A few accomplishment can sometimes be showed and convince players to avoid entering in a conflict with you. This being said, playing aggressively can earn you some respect but also can gives some reasons for a few to try to attack you. I strongly suggest to read also
How to properly defend at start-up to get your whole defensive strategy set-up. Also read this
http://forum.tribalwars.net/showthread.php?t=216324 if you are a new player and if you want to earn some respect in the game.[/SPOIL]
Axes Escorting
[SPOIL]HQ 4
HQ 5
Smithy 1
Smithy 2
Research axe (only lvl 1 for now if there is levels)
Recruit a few axes (1 to 5 per spear group)
This is basically the same thing as the
Sword escorting but you use axes instead. Choosing either sword or axes is usually what players do. Going for axes allows you to train swordsmen also but shouldn’t be needed now if you chose this strategy. Splitting your spears in smaller groups with axes allows you to steal more resources from more villages. What is the difference? Axes do not slow down your spears on the farming runs and, if you are really active, allow you to gain more resources faster than your neighbours. However, if your farms becomes dry really soon, waiting for the resources to research the axe can slow you down and the sword escorts are less expensive. In many cases, going for a axe escorting can slow you down also. This tactic works even better if you have a really good location and your farms become dry when you almost met all the requirements to recruit axes (or all of them). This strategy also works better on 10 tech worlds. This can be mixed with the
Early axe nuke,
Light cavalry rush and the
Light cavalry addition. Also you can use the
Scouts to gain even more efficiency. This is also a well known tactic and is popular in the early stage.[/SPOIL]
Early axe nuke
[SPOIL](This is a follow up of the axe escorting)
-Build mostly axes, a few more spears during the beginner protection (no buildings unless it is needed like the warehouse or the farm)
This strategy consists on building a large offensive force compared to your enemies to be able to clear at really low cost your neighbours. This strategy to be really effective requires also a lot of activity and works well when your farms are dry. If you think you cannot afford the
Light cavalry rush try this. Spears still are good units to farm and after clearing the few inactives you may have around you; these axes may allow you to boost your own growth. It works well on long beginner protection. The best location to use this would be in the core or early rim and when very few experienced players are around you. If you have plenty of active people around you it could be a good choice, especially if you plan going
pure offense and if they aren’t experienced as already said. Then, once your resources are finally rolling I suggest you following the strategy
Light cavalry addition after you are done with this one. There’s a big bunch of people doing this but often they end up having a offense force not so big since they can’t be online as much as the top players. Clearing is not necessarily the best option either since you are having losses.[/SPOIL]
Upgrading mines strategy
[SPOIL]Upgrade your timber camp, your clay pit or your iron mine according to the resource you need the most.
This strategy is very popular and, even if in many case it is wrongly used once more, in moderation and according to your needs, it can be a good option. Especially if the beginner protection is long you shouldn’t be afraid of adding a few more mine levels to upgrade your income. Plan ahead and if your farming force is having trouble getting a low amount of resources and also hit many spikes, this can be used and help you. If you want to add a few mine levels, be sure to get them before you begin any other strategy to optimize your income.[/SPOIL]
Scouts
[SPOIL]HQ 4
HQ 5
Smithy 1
Smithy 2
Barrack 2
Barrack 3
Barrack 4
Barrack 5
Smithy 3
Smithy 4
Smithy 5
Stable 1
Research scouts (if there is levels, you need lvl 1)
Recruit a few scouts (1 to 5 can be good in most cases). In some worlds you however need at least 4 scouts to get a report though so getting 4 to 15 can be good.
This tactic consists on gather information about the remaining resources in the barbarians and bonus villages. It also leads after the beginner protection to gather information on your neighbours resources and troops. Scouts can be sent with farming runs or without and survive if there is no scouts in the attacked village. Scouts aren’t necessary to get as soon in most cases and there is some ways to actually have a lot of information on both troop counts and resources in many villages without their help. Check
Advanced Farming Tactics and clearing for more information. That is one of the reason many players skip scouts to make a
Light cavalry rush even faster. However, if you are active, getting scouts on the core when all villages are empty can allow you to both plan your hauls and maybe find good farms further out without taking the risk to lose more times for even fewer resources further. It is also a popular tactic but it is not always used for farming in the really early stage. Some players do also create a small white wall (a defence of scout) to block any scout attack.[/SPOIL]
Light Cavalry Rush
[SPOIL]HQ 4
HQ 5
HQ 6
HQ 7
HQ 8
HQ 9
HQ 10
Smithy 1
Smithy 2
Barrack 2
Barrack 3
Barrack 4
Barrack 5
Smithy 3
Smithy 4
Smithy 5
Stable 1
Stable 2
Stable 3
Research light cavalry (lvl 1 will do to begin with)
Build only light cavalry (and warehouse+ farm levels when needed) until you are able to have light cavalry in production 24 hours a day.
This tactic is really popular and of course can be really effective for farming since the best unit to farm is often considered the light cavalry for his speed and his hauling capacity. A single light cavalry will survive against no wall and no defence. Try to send light cavalry alone in groups to keep their speed advantage. The light cavalry rush works better in short beginner protection and works very well if you are active. It works also pretty well on 10 tech worlds. Getting light cavalry before the beginner protection should be your goal only if you are actively farming your area. Note that there is no specific order for the smithy and barrack levels and that sometimes some people research and recruits new kind of units during the process to get to light cavalry. (like scouts or axes) Often, experienced players will try to build smithy levels if they know they won’t have the resources to queue more buildings for quite some times or barrack levels if they know they have the resources to keep their HQ working. Building the barrack first allow you to produce soldiers faster also if you are still recruiting soldiers. It is a quite popular strategy as well.[/SPOIL]
Wall addition and hiding place
[SPOIL]A good number of players do decide to build a wall before the beginner protection or after without any real goal in mind. Especially if you are in the core, getting a lvl 1 in the last few minutes of the beginner protection or a few minutes/ hours after it ended can be a good investment. The wall at this stage is pretty much invincible and do add a bit more defence to your village. However, as long as it is not needed, some players consider the cheap cost of the wall an investment that should be avoid if you are online 24 hours a day 7 days a week. It would be better increase your income since your defence has no real use to make you grow. Some players queue some wall levels once both of the barrack and stable are running constantly to keep running their HQ also and having at least a small wall growing with your village is advisable. The same principle occurs for the hiding place but many players neglect even more their hiding place than their wall. [/SPOIL]
Light Cavalry Addition
[SPOIL]HQ 6
HQ 7
HQ 8
HQ 9
HQ 10
Smithy 2
Barrack 2
Barrack 3
Barrack 4
Barrack 5
Smithy 3
Smithy 4
Smithy 5
Stable 1
Stable 2
Stable 3
Build only light cavalry (and warehouse+ farm levels when needed) until you are able to have light cavalry in production 24 hours a day.
Usually, at this step, you are out of the beginner protection. It is possible you have already a few of the buildings listed if you already have scouts by example and the exact order doesn’t exist once more here. It is pretty much the same concept as the
Light Cavalry Rush if you want more details. Often if you are using this, you already researched a few kinds of units also. This strategy is also being used by a significant amount of players.[/SPOIL]
Defence after beginner protection.
[SPOIL]In most case, building defence units like swords or archers does not necessary boost your growth. If you are able to keep your stable working 24 hours a day and you do not need axes for any clearing task, build some more spears to increase your farming capacity. Spears are defensive units but are used to farm like any other units. No matter what are your troops, they should always be out farming even if they are defensive troops. Many players keep their troops at home and many players recruit axes but few experienced players recruit spears if they have axes researched.
Some people do however build a defence and in this case, you should know what you want to kill. Spears are good versus cavalry, swords against axes and archers in top of that can help also. A defence is stronger when more kind of units and in good proportions is built. Many players do try to defend themselves and it is not a productive way to play tribalwars early on. The requirement for swords is a smithy lvl 1, for archers you need barrack lvl 5 and smithy lvl 5.[/SPOIL]
24 hours a day, 7 days a week (24/7)
[SPOIL]The goal of many experienced Tribalwars players is to keep firstly the stable running at all time, then the barrack and then the HQ. That means that, if you want to use the best strategy you need to recruit your Light cavalry (maybe scouts, mounted archers and heavy cavalry also) in the stable first, then your axes (or spears, swords and archers) in your barrack secondly and then other buildings in your Headquarters. You still have to keep building your farm though and your warehouse while doing this. Many experienced players will, when they actually have many light cavalry and axes in queue, begin to upgrade their HQ. Most players raise it to lvl 20 but the top players usually go between lvl 23 and lvl 27. Once you have this you can produce buildings faster. You can then upgrade your stable and barrack to produce more units faster and slowly planning and entering the
Early game Part 2.[/SPOIL]
Demolishing strategy
[SPOIL]This is a really rare strategy but becomes popular while the world expands. This consist on demolishing your own buildings temporarily when you see your farm filling up a bit quickly and want to continue produce troops. Sometimes, you can free up new farm space faster by demolishing a few buildings than waiting for another farm level. You can then queue also a farm level after and rebuild your demolished buildings. This is a counterproductive strategy most of the case but becomes a good strategy a bit later in the game. If by example you use frequently your market and need it to level 20 once you got your second village but feel you now need it lower, this can free up a few villagers to become soldiers. At this point the demolishing strategy is more popular. Also, some players to demolish faster cat themselves and, by doing this, they can also continue to grow their village by actually building new buildings instead of demolishing old ones.[/SPOIL]
Advanced Farming Tactics and clearing
[SPOIL]Besides finding out which player is inactive you can also make approximations and scenarios on who has which buildings/troops and who farms where. If you do this properly you can find out a lot of information, sometimes even more than what scouts can give you. This requires time though but if you are bored between 2 farming runs, you can do these things: Use the points table in the help section to figure who built which building. Considering they may have built only a few mine levels, a barrack and few other buildings, it is not hard to figure if you update their point growth with server updates what they do have actually (roughly of course for the exact type of mine or farm level but you can figure by logic which levels they built according to the strategy they may have used.) Other than this, you can calculate how much resources there is left on a barbarian and which mine he built by checking your hauls and the mine incomes for each level of mines. You can find out by checking the balance of your hauls which mine levels your farmed village built. Very few players take the time to do such things though.
Before adding a new farm to your routine, many players suggest to have already farming runs going and going back from each of your farms constantly if you are really active. You should also avoid clearing and any task that would make you lost troops in most case since each troop you have is a part of your income. Farming more villages to get more hauls if your hauls are dry is a good solution and keep looking on the growth of your area. High ODD score also can indicate a player has defended himself already and has probably less or no troops to defend his village. The same goes for ODA, he may have lost offense troops but be aware that very often, having some ODA can indicate how active is a player and that even a low amount of offensive troops is enough to kill a big amount of your own offensive troops with back timing by example. This being said, losing an axe time to time while clearing has a really low impact on your troop count.
The awards can also give some rough idea of the player and how he built his profile. Usually ascii art is typical from less experienced players and revelation about a player or a tribe diplomacy is also. Don’t forget after all that tribalwars is a social game so don’t be afraid to talk to your neighbours or to duke of some tribes and etc... You can find sometimes the most vital information in a conversation if your conversational partner does make mistakes like revealing a few aspects you could use to your advantage. Also, some players mail their neighbours to try to figure their online time. They can do so by checking when you read the mail or replied to it. They would then try to exploit the players while they are not online with their troops or in their attack planning.
Finally, don’t let yourself impressed by anyone and act both in conversations and in the game the way you want to be seen. If you want to be seen like a noob or not being noticed, then do not try to argue with everyone everywhere
If you want to be noticed to intimidate some players, do so. Always keep in mind what is your goal.[/SPOIL]
The tribe
Tribal defense
Tribal growth, planification and offense
Tribal inactives
Tribal leadership for players
Tribal leadership for leaders
Tribal forums
Spy and anti-spy
How to properly defend at start-up
[SPOIL]There is a few tactics to defend your village at a really poor cost in early stage. The only dangerous attack you may receive early on is catapults and nobles (see
Catapults addition,
nobling and
noble train).
You can figure out the speed easily of the troops if you have premium (it is still doable on non premium accounts) coming at your village if you are online by comparing the walking speed of the units and the total travelling speed. This way you can guess which units are attacking.
See this THREAD for non-premium players (well any players in fact)
There is still a way to figure out when the attack was sent if you do not know also exactly when it was by checking attacks ids. (This thread)
Once this first step has been reach, dodge the attack
Dodging consists on sending your troops elsewhere to avoid your attacker killing any of your troops home. To optimize your dodging, you also spend your resources or send them to your farm to be able to farm them back (often you send them to the barbarian you sent your troops to dodge). Raising your hiding place to hide the few leftovers saves you resources. Then, if you have a wall, your wall does some small damage to his troops and the attacker gains nothing or almost.
After that, a tactic called backtiming is an option. It is simply to time your dodge so your troops returns the sooner you can after the enemy attack and attack back with the same walking speed the fastest you can. It is used against players going mainly offensive since you can kill their troops with very few losses. The term backtiming has been extend to also: time an attack to land when his own troops are returning, meaning you can sometimes backtime him before he attacked you or can afford a longer dodge and still be able to reach his rams, cats or nobles with axes by example.
When you are facing a
noble train, you probably have no other choice than both sniping and backtime your opponent. Sniping consist on having troops either returning home or being sent in support in your villages (by tribemates by example) after the first of the 4-5 noble attack but blocking the other ones. If you manage to hit the nobles with a backtime it saves you many troubles also after this and can guarantee your survival against this player.[/SPOIL]
Countering Backtimes and anti-Backtimes strategies
[SPOIL]However, there is also a tactic to avoid being backtimed. You use a few cats (10-25 can do the job) and with your attack, you cat down his rally point. This way, he is unable to send troops back at you right away. Of course if he backtimes you after with only axes, there is really few things you can do. Faking him alot and time more catapults to cat down again and again his rally point is your best option if he is online 24 hours a day. (catching him offline can work pretty good also sometimes if he is really near you) However he still can be able to backtime you and if it is the case, you can also try a counterbacktime, or backtime him once more by dodging fast, and resending if you prefer.
Another strategy to avoid being unable to backtime your enemy is demolishing your own rally point (you need a HQ lvl15 at least) and time his construction back to be done just after he attacked you, it avoids him being able to knock down your rally point when you need it. Make sure to dodge troops before doing so.
For backtiming and all the strategies surrounding that you would find more information by mailing some players or doing a small search on the guide section. These kinds of strategies are used by really limited experienced players.[/SPOIL]
Militia in defence
[SPOIL]In the latest version of the game, a new unit has been introduced for the early stage, the militia. It is technically free and gives you quite some free units. You get 20 per farm level and 300 as a maximum. They last 6 hours and can’t move from villages to villages. However they cost you about 3 hours of mine production, reducing all your mines income by half during these 6 hours. It can still be very cheap to afford especially if you have low mine levels and can hurt a lot your attacker if he tries to farm you by example. This unit is pretty new so, besides having a few speculations with sniping with militia, no real tactics or strategies besides his normal use has been developed yet. Even with this new unit, if you do not need to hurt your attacker, or simply can’t hurt him much, it would be better resourcefully to avoid the use of the militia if you are really active especially.[/SPOIL]
Christmas break and New Year Break in early stages
[SPOIL]One of the last things that comes to my mind about the very early stage is the possibility to have a Christmas break or and/or a New year break occurring. Usually from 24 to 27 of December and from 31 to January 2 each year there is a time when you are unable to kill or steal any resources in the game, even from barbarians and bonus. If it is the case, you have to consider you will have absolutely 0 incomes from your farming and all that would be left is your mine production. This does not necessary mean you have to raise your mine during this period or before but this does mean you have to prepare yourself for it. A good tactic choice is, since you have time but no resources, build buildings with a long construction time such as the smithy. Anyway, you may have not enough resources to keep going all short buildings and your creation of troops. Remember also that, when the break finish, the barbarians and inactive players (like when the beginner protection ends) will have a few more resources than usually and being the first one to farm them gives you once more a slight advantage. You can take also the time to calculate what will be on each village when you will be able to attack them during these periods if you really want to play during Christmas or the New Year. It is possible to send support and attack as normal during the break (break rule has changed this year and during a certain period we are now completly unable to do so) but if any attacks lands while the break is on; your troops will visit the village and come back with nothing. Your support will stay on the supported village though and nobling just before the break begins gives you a bit more time to support the village and gain back loyalty.
The effect of the breaks is reduced if your account has been played for longer and/or if the world has been on for sometimes. It is also easier to keep every building running the later this occurs.[/SPOIL]
Church
[SPOIL]If you are wondering what is the use of the church (if it exists on your world), so far there were probably none. Just try to keep yours alive and don’t demolish it for now. See
Church addition for further details.[/SPOIL]
