When you see an attack coming in to your capital, immediately try to assess the threat level in order to decide whether you should defend, and if so, how much defenses do you need.
Is there a way to find out a player’s offensive army size? You can send a scout and hope to catch his offensive army at home. Or you can ask a spy in the alliance to access the battle report.
Other than these, there are a few indicators you can use to estimate a player’s offensive army size. These apply from the early to mid game, because by end game, you will already know who are the players with the big armies.
Assuming the attack is coming from a capital, these are the questions to ask yourself in order to assess the army size :-
- Is the capital a 6, 9 or 15 cropper?
- Does it have any crop oases?
- When was the capital established?
- What is the player’s offense rank?
A 6 or 9 cropper capital is also called a newbie capital. I wouldn’t worry about it and will probably view it as a low level threat.
As for a 15 cropper capital, check for crop oases. The more crop oases it has, the better skilled the player, the higher the threat level.
When was the capital established? A capital that was established just a week ago is lower threat than one that has had a few weeks to grow.
Factor in gold production bonus. Does the attacker use gold? Some players proudly proclaim they’re a non-gold user. Non gold users are less threatening.
Also check the capital size. If the village with the highest population is the 15 cropper capital, then it’s a higher threat level.
Lastly, always check the player’s offense rank. This is the most meaningful indication of a player’s aggressiveness. The number of offense points vary depending on which stage of the game.
For example, for my case, if during late game, I see a player with 40,000 offense points attacking me. Then I would be comfortable with just a 20,000 defense. If he has a 120,000 offense points, then I would probably try to get at least 60,000 defense. If he has just 10,000 offense points, I would probably just put 10,000 defenders.
Use this only as a guideline to assess whether there is a comfortable gap between you and the attacker. Everyone will have his own comfort zone, so you have to find yours through experimentation.
No doubt this is not an exact science, but it does give you some hints about a player’s offensive capability. There’s no way to tell for sure, but these questions are the same questions that run though my mind when assessing the threat level of incoming attacks.
Its common sense, but use the offense (and defense) rank as indicators to a player’s military capability.