by ExtremeJeff Fri Jun 10, 2016 5:17 am
WHY DODGE
Why should you play this way, won't it make you look weak? No. The truth is that someone with more than 2 or 3 cities is far more interested in CP (Culture Points) than resources. So they're not farming you for your resources, they're farming you for your BP!
If you fight, you're actually giving them what they want. Worse, the BP they get fighting you gives them the CP they need to conquer you, while simultaneously weakening your ability to repel their Conquest attack. Please don't do this. If you don't want to be bullied, or just want some payback, attack back. They're telling you everything you need to know to hurt them when they attack you.
If they send 100+ LS in one attack, then that city is an LS nuke and may be poorly defended because of the cap on Farm Space. If they attack you 10 times in 2 days, you're going to see gaps in the attack waves of certain players, which means that's when they sleep.
If you can attack them where they're poorly defended, especially while they're sleeping, you will do much more harm to them than if you defended against their attack. For example: You send LS attack to his LS nuke city and destroy 100+ LS. You get massive BP, you hardly lose any ships, and you've made it impossible for him to attack you with those ships until he's rebuilt them. This is much better than you losing 1 or 2 Biremes for each of his LS that you kill while defending. Most importantly, you've saved those Biremes so that they can protect you when someone sends a CS to take your city.
HOW TO IDENTIFY INCOMING CS
Identifying an incoming Colony Ship is the most important thing you need to know if you want to keep your city. I will be writing another guide to help you choose whether to dodge or throw down, but in order to decide you have to know whether or not your enemy has sent a CS, because your city can't be taken without one. So here's how you do it:
When your enemy launches an attack against you, you will get a notification at the top and on the right of your screen. This will tell you what time his attack is landing. If you've been watching, or have a build notice or something on the right that came in before the attack started, you can tell about what time the attack was launched. From those two times you can figure the attack's travel time. A CS ship is the slowest ship. Regular Transport Ships are twice as fast, and LS are three times as fast. So, from your city that's under attack you click attack on the attacking city, then put 1 in the CS box like you're going to send one to him (you don't actually send one, you don't even need to have one). The game will tell you how long it'll take for your CS to get to him and what time it'll land. That's it! If your CS takes significantly longer to get to him than his attack takes to get to you, then there's no CS inbound. If you really want to get fancy, you can plug different ships into your attack window (transport, fast transport, LS) and figure out exactly what he's sending.
You can also worship Athena and use the Wisdom spell, but eventually you'll run out of favor or find that the attacker has already cast a spell on the attack that prevents yours from being executed. ...incoming defensive waves are also a give away, but they can be bluffs. Identifying which attack has the CS is critical so that you can report its landing time to your alliance. The CS target and landing time are the two most important pieces of information, and will help your alliance help you.
Spotting a Colony Ship "CS"
The earlier you realize you are under attack, the more accurate this is. Here is what you will see if you are attacked:
1) You will see a big orange and red spear icon near the top of your screen. If you click that Spear icon, it will tell you where the attack was launched from, what city it is attacking, and a countdown timer until the attack arrives.
2) The timer is the important part. First rule: colony ships only have a 48 hour range. So if the attack is from farther than that is CAN NOT be a colony ship attack. This is not case here. So lets say you have an incoming attack on your town and are not sure if it is a Colony Ship
1) Make sure you have the attacked town (if you have more than one) as the name at the top of the screen
2) Then click on the Spear Icon, then click on the name of the attacking town, then click "Go To"
3) Click on that attacker city, and select “Attack”
4) Screen of selecting attacking troops are opened
5) Mark there number one (1) in the box below Colony Ship. You can do that even you do not have a Colony Ship in your city
6) You see travelling time in attacking view. If this is about the same than attacking time, it is a colony ship.
Please remember that Cartography, reduces travelling time by 10%, Set Sail reduces TT by 15%, and super building Lighthouse by 15%. Lighthouse is so rare that you do not need to consider that.
Troop movement, and certain heroes will have an effect on TT as well.
The issue here is that if Colony Ship was sent during your inactive time. You always see only remaining time, so if you are offline for 8 hrs, you do not know if it was sent 7:45 hrs or 15 minutes ago. It is important to check your account frequently when conquered.
HOW TO DODGE
Dodging is an important aspect of the game. It allows you to conserve troops and rob an attacking party of the BP and resources that they're after. Often times, when they realize that you're not puttin' out, they'll move on.
The Short Dodge:
Load your support window with all your troops, destined to any ally or ghost town. Send them out, then call them back within the 10 minute cancellation period. This is extremely effective when you want to dodge one attack and defend against another because it allows your troops to move out of the way for seconds or minutes instead or hours.
The Long Dodge:
Same as above, just don't cancel. You can bring them back using the Agora when you want them.
Overnight Dodge:
I have certain cities deep in enemy territory where I can't count on timely support and I'm surrounded by people from Europe who are wide awake while I'm sleeping. For them, I've developed a special long term dodge that recalls itself. Same general principle as the Long Dodge, except I load up my mythical units and send them to a city that doesn't worship the same god. e.g. I put Medusa on a transport ship bound for a city that worships Zeus (or no god at all like a ghost town). When my navy gets there the game puts up a message that says my mythical units can't support a city that's worshiping a different god, then all the ships and troops I sent along with my Medusa turn around and come home automatically. If I send them 4 hours away, then they'll be gone exactly 8 hrs.
So why Dodge? Mainly because many attacks are not attempts to conquer a city, but just to farm resources and BP. If you defend every attack you're actually giving the enemy what they want, while making yourself and those who support you weaker. Please read "How to identify an incoming CS attack" if you don't already know how to tell when someone's trying to take your city, versus when they're just trying to farm you or make you weaker. Also, don’t forget to activate militia and spend/cave all your resources before the attacks hit. It's important to understand that militia fighters do NOT give the enemy BPs... they just give him casualties.
Sometimes, especially on quests you will want to dodge your OLUs out of a city, and defend with your DLUs. Just don't forget, and leave those troops in the nearby city. They can be attacked by anyone, even accidentally, when other peoples are looking for cities to raid, and then they'll just die too easily.
RESOURCE DODGING
Hide resources when you are dodging.
You do this two ways. Early in the game, you should use the resources to build your farm levels, so that getting attacked and dodging in this way serve two purposes: building up you farms, thereby adding to your revenue sources, and getting your resources where they aren't swept away by the enemy
Eventually though, you will use your market place and put them up in the market so that only your alliance can see them. When listing in this way, if it's a resource that you really need, list it the maximum trade cost ratio, so it's unlikely that someone will actually make the trade, but if they do, you will get very good return on your value. That way your resources can be protected as well. This is why so many players will build high levels of markets, for resource dodging. A high level market is also essential for end game in moving resources to your alliance's wonders
If you cap out your market doing this throw down some resources in buildings and some will also be protected by the warehouse depending on its level.
