What is Forces Management?

This game isn’t much different from real war… except of course no one is actually hurt. The reason for this stems from the seriousness with which some players take attacks against their cities. The result is the ability to defeat an opponent even when all resources are protected and armies hidden. So we have two targets when going to war: military might and the frustration level of the enemy. We manage our forces to attack these targets as well as to actually gain from farming.

Military Might

Military might is used to destroy the ability of the enemy to wage war. In this game, this means zeroing out their might across as many cities as possible. It also means destroying attacking armies when possible. To do this requires a thorough understanding of the various types of might and how to deploy them to achieve decisive victory.

Types of Might

When looking at might, I analyze non-wall might. Wall might is near useless; loss of it often drops alliances lower in the rankings in one attack. It has little value when protecting a city unless it is used in large numbers and the wall is at level 9. This is a topic for another article. We also won’t discuss Supply Troops: worth 1 might but of little real value. Rather, here we look at might created by training combat troops. The following table depicts the types of troops, associated might, attack strength, and the life rating of each.

Troop Type	Might	Attack	Life	Good Against
Tier 1
Light Cavalry	4	1	1	Artillery
Militiamen	4	1	1	Horse
Archers	4	1	1	Ground
Tier 2
Cavalry	16	2	2	Artillery
Swordsmen	16	2	2	Horse
Ballistae	16	2	2	Ground
Tier 3
Heavy Cavalry	24	4	4	Artillery
Battering Rams	24	4	4	Horse
Catapults	24	4	4	Ground

Analysis of this table provides important information. First, might is not attack strength or an individual soldier’s “health” (ability to survive in combat). For example, when a single cavalry soldier attacks a single catapult, it is facing something of only 50% greater might. However, the catapult’s attack strength and its life are both twice that of the cavalry soldier. Also, Tier 2 troops have four times the might of those at Tier 1, but there is only a difference of 1 in attack and life ratings. Taking this up in scale, having the same might as the army you’re fighting does not mean there is a match in attack strength or troop health. This is why it is very important to gather intelligence before attacking an enemy with equal or greater strength.

Building Armies

When building an army for attacking an opponent, you must consider two factors.

· What is the overall city non-troop strength? (See How to Defend Your City…)

· What is the troop makeup of the opposing force?

In this article I focus on troop makeup of your army using the information related to the second bullet. The first step is to scout the opposing force. If attacking a city, build your Eagle Eye research to at least level 6 and scout the enemy city. The scouting report provides a list of the types of troops in the city and how many of each.

Let’s take an actual example. I am attacking a city with 120,000 might, broken down as

· 2500 Swordsman

· 2500 Cavalry

· 2500 Ballistae

What combination of troops do I have to send to ensure decisive victory? One way is to use the table below. It contains my estimates of what you need to defeat 100 of each of the target troop types based on what the game considers its strongest opponent. For example, cavalry is considered best against artillery, so I only list cavalry numbers for each artillery type. The numbers are based on attack strength and life as listed in the table above. Remember, these are minimums.

Target (100 ea.)	Militia	Swordsmen	Batt. Ram	Archers	Ballistae	Catapults	L. Cavalry	Cavalry	H. Cavalry
Militia				100	50	25
Swordsman				200	100	50
Batt. Ram							400	200	100
Archers							100	50	25
Ballistae							200	100	50
Catapults							400	200	100
L. Cavalry	100	50	25
Cavalry	200	100	50
H. Cavalry	400	200	100

In our example of attacking 120K might, we would need something like the following:

· 2500 Ballistae

· 1250 Battering Rams

· 1250 Heavy Cavalry

Our resulting troop might is then 100K. So we are sending a superior 100K might army against a 120K might army. It’s important to see the difference in might and in attacking/life values and how they affect might requirements. This could be easily turned around; use the tools provided in this website to ensure an army attacking you with less might isn’t still going to kick your ass.

Other Might Requirements

Troop might is only part of what you need for a decisive victory. If you are attacking a city, you must consider the following items:

· Experience level of opposing knight (increase troop numbers by 5% for each EP) [estimated and subject to experience change]; this information is not available in lower levels for the Watchtower and Eagle Eye

· Wall might

· Wall level (increase troop numbers by 5% for each wall level) [estimated and subject to experience change]

All forces are interlocked. You cannot win with just one type. So,

1) Eliminate Cavalry to protect Artillery

2) Eliminate Artillery to protect Ground Troops

3) Eliminate Ground Troops and Battering Ram to protect Cavalry

If you fail in any one of these, you allow a strong force to wipe out a key defensive or offensive unit. For example, if you send the right number of Cavalry and Ground Troops, but cut corners with Artillery, you expose your Cavalry to strong attack by Ground Troops that escape Artillery. Because your Cavalry is hit hard, it can’t eliminate the enemy’s artillery. Because Artillery survives, your Ground Troops get slaughtered. Every troop type is important…

Psychological Warfare

As we all know, it angers us to get attacked. We feel violated somehow. Suck it up, and get over it J. This is a WAR GAME. We will not allow ourselves to be dragged into situations, sometimes engineered for our doom by opponents, because of emotional knee jerking. However, we will cause the other guy to do so.

Two things happen when you continuously attack a city with completely protected resources. First, you keep gold at zero. This prevents your opponent from research and from paying knights assigned to positions in Knights’ Hall (see Managing Your Knights…). These two things together stop research and hinder production.

Second, you increasingly frustrate your opponent. At some point, he or she will quit the game, join an alliance, call their alliance for help, or expose their army to cause you damage. Quitting the game simply means we gain a riskless farm. Joining an alliance takes time, and from what we’ve seen no alliance wants the baggage of a continuously attacked city. Calling their alliance for help will work if the alliance is the same size or larger than we. For this reason, unless we are forced into war, we try to avoid attacking cities in alliances with more than 50% of our alliance might. Finally, we must always assume the frustrated knight will expose his or her army. Never repeatedly farm a city without scouting it each time, for example, unless you send at least three times the might it possesses. Looking at the city’s level will give you some idea of what you might be facing. I doubt if any city under level 30 will have T3 troops. If you frequently attack a city (multiple times a day), prepare for a surprise on one of your outings. Keep the city scouted, and use the information in the military might section of this article to properly size your army.

And so…

Most of our opponents will not take these factors into account. They tend to simply throw troops at a target. Let’s be smarter. Let’s kick ass with minimal losses and decisive victories.

Got additional recommendations about forces management? Send them to me at ozfury@adventuresinsecurity.com

GOOD HUNTING!!