How Do I Protect/Defend My City - UPDATED

by Thane MacPherson LoS/GotS

You're minding your own business, looking for your dragon egg, pondering all the stuff you're gonna build next... and it happens: your Sentinel gives you a warning. Your city is about to be hit. Oh crap!

RULE #1: stay calm. It's a war game. Eventually, someone is gonna come along and kick your ass. But hey, you joined LoS, right? We got your back, so don't panic. Go to the chat room and tell someone you are about to be hit. 

RULE #2: READ your Sentinel report. What does it say?

• "Based upon the makeup of their forces, they will attempt to spy upon..." This means that spies will come your way. Could be 1 spy. Could be 1000! All they are doing is looking. Your foe may not bother to attack you if he doesn't see anything of interest. Let 'em look. If someone gets their fur up and mans their walls when I spy on them, I figure they have something to protect, so I hit them hard.
• "Based upon the makeup of their forces, they will attempt to pillage and plunder..." This means that your foe has sent out his forces. They will hit your city within a specific period of time. This is where you have to decide if you will fight or hide. See Rule #3.

 RULE #3: don't leave troops on your wall while you're away from the game. EVER. Resources are easy to rebuild, especially if you ask members to help you or have smaller cities you can plunder. If you choose to defend an attack, do it only if you know you can win. It's tempting to leave a batch of spies or a small defensive force using the troop defense selection tool - don't do it. Every troop killed is power lost for you and your alliance.

Rule #4: if the attack happened while you were away, you should still go to the chat room to inform someone. You will need to post a copy of the battle report (screen shot) on the wall. 

How do I defend my City?

The best way to defend and prevent your city from being attacked is by having a powerful city and outnumbering any opponent. In most cases this means more of everything is better.

Here are some tips to help protect your city and win your battles:

• IF YOU CAN WIN: Make sure your troops are set to defend your city by clicking on your wall and make sure your troops are ordered to defend the city
• UPGRADE YOUR WALL to the highest level you possibly can. Higher level walls have higher defense resistance to protect your city
• TRAIN as many skilled and powerful troops as possible
• UPGRADE YOUR DRAGONS KEEP. The higher the level of your Dragons Keep, the stronger your dragon will be to defend your city
• USE A CEASE FIRE TREATY which provides 12 hours of protection. Cease Fire Treaties can purchased from the Shop or won in Fortuna’s Chance
• GAIN as much power for your city and reach higher levels
• BUILD ATs. I can't stress this one enough. You can ship gold and resources to alliance members before an attack hits, and then recall the ATs after the attack is done. Pick an active member that lives far, far away from you.
• BUILD UP YOUR VAULT. Many players feel the vault is pointless. I like having 2M of each resource after an attack. My dragon may look pathetic, but I can continue to function and build/grow. Plus, I get a power bonus for having a high level building.
• BUILD UP YOUR SENTINEL. 'Nuf said on that.
• Send your Great Dragon away to claim a new wild. She will be safe from the incoming attack. I send 1k bd with her to a level 1 wild (the 1k bd are there in case a weak player decides to send 100 mino to claim it. Overkill on my part, but I like brutality).

You get a new (better) title for each level you gain. Your level is based on the highest amount of Power you have ever had, and cannot go down. Power is based on the number and level of buildings you have, and the number and type and number of your troops. High-level buildings and expensive units are worth more Power.

See http://kabam3.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/58/related/1 for more information.

Contact your Lords and Leaders... help is always a click away. Visit the Lord of the Siege chat if you are in dire need. You're a member of our family, and you got some powerful big brothers and sisters.

INTELLIGENT TROOP DESIGN updated

ANGRY LEMMING ALERT: this updated document offers a wee bit of overkill. We have had a lot of people using minimum numbers, or LBM where they should be losing BD, and they have lost power as troops die. Please, always send more than you need rather than less!

By Thane Padraig MacPherson, Adam Robson 

GUIDE TO INTELLIGENT TROOP COMPOSITION 

I've seen a lot of people asking what they need to take on a wilderness or an anthropus camp. "Should I use 5k BD on this lvl 6 lake?" or "Can I send 500 bd with my minos?"  Here's an easy guide for minimum troops, based off info Adam Robson posted earlier plus some insight from blogger Black Rabbit.

You need to have the following research at level 5: med, met, wep cal.  Dragonry needs to be at level 5 if you are using dragons. lbm = longbowmen; at = armored transport; ssd = swift strike dragons; bd = battle dragons

ANTHRO CAMPS

Level 1        100 lbm     +          30 at

Level 2        200 lbm     +          50 at

Level 3      1,000 lbm    +        100 at

Level 4      1,500 lbm    +        100 at

Level 5      5,500 lbm    +        100 at

Level 6    15,000 lbm    +        100 at

Level 7    20,000 bd      +     5,000 ssd  

ALL WILDERNESS (mountains, forests, hills, lakes, plains, savannahs)

Level 1         100 lbms

Level 2         150 lbms

Level 3         200 lbms

Level 4         500 lbms

Level 5      1,500 lbms

Level 6      2,500 lbms

Level 7      4,000 lbms

Level 8      6,500 lbms

Level 9     10,500 lbms

Level 10   40,000 lbms

THIS NEXT INFO IS FOR MEMS WITH 8MEDS 8MET AND 8 DRAGONRY

PLEASE NOTE THAT WEP CAL IS ONLY FOR GROUND TROOPS AND GIVES NO BOOST TO DRAGONS AT ALL TO MAKE YOUR DRAGONS STRONGER YOU NEED DRAGONRY THIS IS IMPORTANT TRY NO TO FORGET

level  7    20,000 bds     +   10,000 ssd   

Level 8    35,000 bds     +   20,000 ssd  

Level 9    65,000 bds     +   20,000 ssd  

Level 10  120,000 bds   +   20,000 ssd  

ATTACKING:

DO NOT send ground forces with dragons. DO NOT send dragons with ground forces. Either way, you look at it, it's going to be bad for the dragons.

Dragons move at a faster speed, especially your SSD. If you send them with ground troops, these expensive critters are nothing but damage shields. They take a long time to make. They are effective on their own. Battle dragons are your BEST form of troop, and Swifts serve as nice shields for them. Unless you don't mind making Swifts after every major battle (i.e. you're powerful enough to be comfortable losing several thousand dragons), stay with ground forces while you gain power. And yes, build dragons as you go... increasing your army increases your power level.

Minos are heavy shields for Longbowmen. Make them, use them, make more. I don't use Minos for waves on camps and raw  wilderness... if you stick to my guide above, you won't lose troops! I save them for when I need to take down a city or a player-occupied wilderness.

Giants are great replacements for Minos once you are at a level when you can make them in large batches. Beginners, stick with Minos for a while.

Only build enough conscripts and hals to complete the quest, they are a useless troop, mino, while not as good as giants are a good shield for support troops (like lbm & lava) they also serve as a good buffer for your giants later.

Porters are good when starting out, but work hard to get your research and building done so you can churn out armored transports. These are key when raiding anything, shipping rss (resources) and gold to fellow alliance members, or feeding your massive army by attacking camps.

Spies are a primary tool. I also use them on occasion to test a city's defenses. Attack with a spy, let him die, and you'll know the state of the city. Reinforce with spies.

Fangs and Mirrors... well, this is a guide for beginners!

More info at http://blackrabbit2999.blogspot.com/2011/01/facebook-dragons-of-atlantis-troop.html 

Please add comments and suggestions to improve the info this thread!

Happy hunting!   

Thane  

Glitch Cities

This document i found to be quite helpful for our newer members and hopefully will complement the existing [LoS grouppage] document on glitches 

Toni's doc on glitch cities

from Lords of Siege

Glitch (or Magic) cities are former player cities that have been dormant for a period of time. They might offer a small amount of resources or a large amount. They are glitch cities because they reset after each attack IF youdo not send enough troops to fully harvest each attack.

Look for little cities without any alliance, 1 or 2 in level with at least 100 in power. Also make certain it's close to you so you can effectively wave:

Spy them to see what is inside. This is a spy report for the city above:

Glitch cities have amounts that end in zeros, as above. This city is small and it does not have a dragon. It may have a vault? Each wave could give the amounts listed above:

650k in food

0k     in gold *(please see note)

600k in wood

500k in ore

350k in stone

total these up .

so 650+600+500+350=  2.1million 

and add the largest figure to what you get

largest figure is food

(this stops you from resetting thglitch if the gold happens to be in excess of 650k)

+650

total= 2.75million send 

send 600Ats if it is a level 2 or less city.

if the city is lvl3 or higher you will need to send enough troops to defeat the great dragon as well.

after 1st attack you will be able to calculate how big the vault is by deducting the br figures from the spy report.

then you will be able to send the minimum amount of troops to recover all the loot from the city and defeat the dragon if it has one.

Launching waves, each wave containing enough troops to defeat the great dragon and with enough load capacity to ensure all the loot is removed.

Your resources will grow tremendously with each hit and you will have a smile on your face, at last, an easier way to gather resources, ;-).

Please update this if you have noticed errors or can explain the little details that we have overlooked. 

amended 

13/09/2011 dene boyd