When defending against attacks, always use the right troop for the right job. Every troop type has its strengths and weaknesses. For complete stats of their attack and defense points, you can refer to the Travian help.
Teuton defense troops are spearman and paladin. For Romans, they are legionnaire and praetorian. Gauls have three defense troops: phalanx, druidrider and haeduan.
When defending, use only defense troops to defend. Furthermore, if you know the composition of the attacking army, use the correct troop type to defend :-
- Spearman, phalanx, haeduan and legionnaire are best against cavalry.
- Praetorian, druidrider and paladin are best against infantry.
A good defense army is a combination of both anti-infantry and anti-cavalry defense troops. As a guideline, Roman offense armies tend to be more infantry based; Teutons more cavalry and Gauls a combination of both.
If a Roman is attacking, ensure you have a higher ratio of anti-infantry troops because Roman armies usually have a lot of imperians. Defending only with spears against a Roman is a very bad idea.
If a Gaul or Teuton is attacking, use a balanced mix of anti-infantry and anti-cavalry troops for defense. Teutons tend to have more cavalry and defending only with praetorians is a bad idea.
Praetorians fall like flies to Teuton Knights (or any cavalry unit). And the spearman fall like flies to the imperian.
If you have any offense troops sitting in your village, then send them away to dodge the attack. Never defend with the clubswinger. They are one of the weakest defenders in the game.
What’s worse than being cata’ed is to lose your offense army in the attack. Offense troops are very weak in defense and much more expensive to train.
Just a disclaimer to be careful on the attack type. You don’t want to run away from a conquer attack, because if your village is conquered, you will lose all troops trained from that village, even if they are away reinforcing someone else.
Dodging Attacks
Dodging attacks means clearing your village of any troops at the time of the attack so you don’t risk them being killed. For example, you will need to clear out all your offense troops at the time of the attack.
You can dodge attacks by :-
- Sending your army away to attack or reinforce another village.
- Dodging the incoming attack.
Sending your army away either as reinforcement or to attack another village will mean that your army has to complete the round trip. So if it takes 30 minutes to travel to its destination, and a further 30 minutes to travel back – then you need an hour to complete the trip.
A better way is just to dodge the incoming attack. To dodge an attack :-
- Ten seconds before the attack arrives, send your army out to reinforce another village.
- As soon as the attack arrives, cancel your reinforcement in the rally point and your army will return back.
- You only have 90 seconds after sending them away to cancel the order.