Alliance Offense Strategies

In this section, you will learn several offense strategies you can use specifically during the end game.

Stealing Enemy Plans

If the enemy knows what he’s doing, he’ll be shuffling his plans around so you never get to land your hammer on his Plan village. However, because Treasuries may not be built in a capital, if you attack from a capital, the enemy might just ignore your attack thinking that its harmless.

A simple trick is to attack from your capital, with your hammer and hero and aim for the Treasury. If the enemy does not move his Plans, then five minutes before your hammer arrives, you can switch capital and gold up a Treasury in your old capital.

Remember you need to build a Palace in another village, but don’t switch capital until the last minute when you are sure the plans have not moved.

Yes, your croplands and resource fields will be lowered to level 10. So this can be executed by players with recently destroyed capitals. Or you just need to weigh the price of losing your croplands, and gaining a plan.

Is it worth it? Definitely yes, because that’s one less World Wonder to worry about at the cost of a few croplands.

Attacking Support Villages

Support villages will mushroom up all around the World Wonder village as soon as the World Wonder is conquered. Right in the middle of the image below is the World Wonder village.

It is extremely easy to attack all these support villages and it is something that should be done periodically. Your overall end game offense strategy should include attacking these support villages.

Organize an attack and assign targets for your alliance members. Get them to send multiple waves of catas and destroy the warehouses, granaries and croplands and treasuries.

The World Wonder host himself should also be attacked. It is extremely easy and very disruptive to the host player, especially when the warehouses are all destroyed. Best of all, you don’t even need big armies, as ROF armies will usually do the trick.

As with before, periodically organize attacks on all the villages of the World Wonder host. Avoid the World Wonder village itself and also avoid the capital. Attack all other support villages, including the Construction Plan village and destroy the warehouses, granaries, treasuries, marketplace and trade office.

The Construction Plan village is especially susceptible. Because the host will be constantly shuffling the plans between villages, therefore he has to empty out the defenders in order to move the plans. This makes the Construction Plan village very poorly defended and usually even a ROF army will get the job done.

Keep up the pressure and keep hammering at these support villages.

Attacking Enemy World Wonders

Attacking enemy World Wonder villages will probably be the most important offensive campaign you will undertake as commander in chief of your alliance. I suggest that you do not plan this alone, but get your council members involvement as well.

Every server plays out differently, and what’s considered as successful on one server may be considered failure on another server. Some alliances have plenty of very large WW hammers, with experienced players/hosts from past servers, and some may lack experience in the end game.

Sometimes the inexperienced, or those with plenty of hammers tend to attack earlier. All these affects the way the end game is played out, but there are a few fundamental guidelines you can use to help you plan a World Wonder assault.

As this is a big topic, I’ve segregated it into a few parts so its easier to follow.

Basic Fundamentals

Intelligence is very, very important part in planning a World Wonder attack. That is so important, that I’m going to repeat it again.

Intelligence is very, very important in planning a World Wonder attack.

Do not send any attacks against a World Wonder village without knowing his defenses. Of course you may send fake attacks anytime, but for any real attacks, you need to scout first.

To scout a World Wonder village, send around 5000 axeman to RAID it. At least one axeman will return to report on the defenses. Teutons are best because the axeman is cheap and fast to train.

Using 5000 clubswingers will also do in most cases, unless defenses exceed 6 million defenders, then none of them will survive.

For other tribes, the equivalent strength may also be used. For example, 5000 imperians, or 5000 swordsman, or even 1500 Equites Caesaris, but these troops are considerably more expensive.

If you want to use scouting units, then send at minimum 12000 scouts, otherwise you’re just wasting your time and scouts. Scout for resources, and hopefully it will be able to reveal his warehouse capacity.

Arrange to scout enemy World Wonders regularly, roughly at levels 40, 50, 70, 80, 90 and prior to planning your attacks. You don’t have to scout every enemy World Wonder, only those you have identified for attack. It does not cost much and there are players who have clubswingers/axeman armies sitting around doing nothing.

Some of these players even suicide their armies at enemy World Wonder villages, doing no damage at all. The reason why they suicide their hammers is because they don’t know what to do with their troops. Ask these players to save their armies, and use them for scouting instead.

I have seen many alliances blindly attack World Wonder villages. As a result, many hammers do little to no damage, or at other times, they are overkill until the catas start to land at random. Either way is a waste of good hammers.

You need to value your WW hammers and use them sparingly. It is like bullets in a magazine rifle. Once you’ve run out of bullets, you’ve lost the game.

The goal of any World Wonder assault is to seriously damage all high level Great Warehouses. Remember that attacks will always land on the Great Warehouse with the highest level. You should send just the right amount of hammers with the right strength to level all high level Great Warehouses.

No more, and no less. Leave the Great Granaries and World Wonder alone because they are not nearly as worth it as the Great Warehouses. Instead of targeting the Great Granaries, save your WW hammers for the next round instead.

But how would you know how many WW hammers and who to send? That’s why you need to periodically scout for his defenses.

That brings me to the next fundamental rule. Before sending any WW hammer to attack a WW village, run it though the Combat Simulator first.

If you have undertaken Project WW, then you will have a clear picture of your military status. Use the Combat Simulator and run through every WW hammer against the defenses and record the damage each hammer will do.

Then strategize, and choose the best hammers for the job. Try to use the weaker hammers first, because defenses are expected to increase as the game progresses. Multiple weaker hammers have no chance against an increased defense.

Create an Excel and record the following :-

The image above is an ACTUAL list. Only their names have been changed. It shows the damage each hammer will do against the Great Warehouse of our enemy World Wonder. The list is broken into two parts, the WW Armies and Ram Hammers.

Choose one or two ram hammers, then follow on with the WW hammers behind it. Once you have chosen your armies, and their arrival sequence, you can simulate the total damage they will do.

Planning Your Attack

Logistics can be a nightmare sometimes especially during the holiday season. Due to the importance and sensitive timing of these attacks, you need to plan way ahead. Alert your hammers to be on standby about 5 to 6 days in advance.

Here’s a checklist of what to expect if you wait until 3 days or provide too short notice :-

1. Players suddenly tell you they need 22 hours to withdraw their troops from storage because they are stored at the end of the world.
2. They tell you they need 68 hours to reach the designated target because they don’t have a tournament square.
3. They don’t reply for two days because they are on holiday and haven’t checked their messages.

Any one of these can cause your attack planning to go awry. Plan ahead and issue your attack orders 4 days prior so there is enough time for everyone to reach their destination. Unfortunately, this also means you need to estimate the enemy’s defenses 4 or 5 days ahead.

Once you have chosen your hammers, transfer the details to the Attack Spreadsheet. It should look something like this :-

The image above shows an ACTUAL attack plan. Only their names have been changed.

1. Start by filling in the desired attack sequence. Then fill in the desired arrival times.
2. Then use the Travel time calculator and calculate the travel time of each player. Remember you have their TS level. It was recorded under Project WW.
3. Calculate their departure time. And send out the attack orders advising them precisely what time they need to send off their attacks.

Although this is not necessary, but it ensures that players don’t wrongly calculate their departure time (which happens all the time btw).

Also ensure you provide sufficient notice because its not uncommon for players to need up to 20 hours to withdraw their troops.

Using your hammers wisely and executing flawless attacks will very much help you to gain a leading edge over the WW race. But at the end of the day, the alliance with the strongest WW hammers and the most adept at diplomacy is the one that will win.