Guide #7 - Prepping to be Attacked

You will more than likely be attacked at some point or another. What you don't want to become is someone's farm. Here are some tips to prepare for being attacked, once your beginner protection is gone, and you're out of the mist (You can be attacked under mist).

Many of you are very worried about being attacked. Many of us are still trying to gain might and resources, so this is what we encourage you to do if you are scouted for an attack or about to be attacked:

1. Make sure you have the highest level of storehouse you can afford to build. Each level of storehouse holds 100,000 of resources (wood, stone, ore, food). Alchemy also helps to raise what you can protect. (shrinking powder – 10% each level more protection)

2. Unless you have a massive army and just really want to defend your city/cities.... put your soldiers in sanctuary right now. Click on the castle and you will see where you can click to keep them in sanctuary (default) or have them defend. If they are in sanctuary you will not lose your soldiers when attacked. Unless you have tens of thousands of soldiers – use the sanctuary. It takes sometimes weeks to rebuild troops, especially if you aren't defending much resources.

3. If you have more resources than your storehouse can protect, then you can either build something that takes up the resource OR you can reinforce one of your high level wildernesses with the extra resources, and just recall it when the attack/s are over. Just be aware, some people attack your wilds too, so it's a chance you take.

4. Gold - gold is not protected by your storehouse, so use it in the market to buy up resources you CAN protect or send it to one of your highest level wilderness for protection as well, though your attacker may know this trick so a wilderness not directly by our city is a good hiding place.

5. Gold- Or, cynraven has said that when she has a large amount of gold, she changes her tax rate to 1%. It means you run a negative while playing, but it eats up some of the gold. Then, when you need the gold for a build, you go under overview and click "increase gold"; you get a large chunk at once & your happiness drops 20% -but if you run 1%, that's still only 79%.. so you don't lose any civilians. Then if you are going to be away from the computer for a while, change the tax percentage to just barely cover your 'cost'... no gold for the attackers to get. (thanks cynraven)

6. Build up your defenses on your castle wall. You can build defenses while building, training and researching alchemy. Just a little perk - it also takes resources to build defenses so that's a good way of using your excess if you're needing a way to get rid of it. Best defenses to build? Caltrops, spiked barriers and crossbows. You definitely need crossbows and lots of them, so make sure you do what you need to build them. Fill it out with traps but don’t use traps as your primary defense.

from KGB - some wall defense strategies:

Caltrops
The purpose of Caltrops is to slow the attackers at maximum range while the army and other defenses attack them at range.
Caltrops do very little damage; they rarely kill troops alone.
Caltrops are completely ignored by Cavalry, Supply Wagons, and Siege Engines: they move right past.
Caltrops should be used with Archers and other range troops defending your city, or with wall-mounted crossbows.

Spiked Barriers
Spiked Barriers stop both types of Cavalry, Siege Engines, and Supply Wagons until they are destroyed.
Spiked Barriers do some damage and can easily wipe out Supply Wagons if they are ignored.
Spiked Barriers are completely ignored by infantry troops: they move right past.
Like Caltrops, Spiked Barriers work best when holding enemy attackers at range for your other troops and defenses.

Traps
Traps are single-use defenses - they will be destroyed when they attack enemy troops.
Traps do a lot of damage, nearly guaranteeing that the attackers will take some losses.

Wall-Mounted Crossbows
Crossbows are very effective defensive units and have a longer range and can do much more damage than Archers.
Crossbows work very well with Caltrops and Spiked Barriers to hold the enemy at their long range.
Crossbows have shorter range than Ballista and Catapults, so they are susceptible to attacks from these units.

Defensive Trebuchets
Trebuchets will only attack Siege Engines and will completely ignore all other units, including supply wagons.
Trebuchets have an enormous range and very high damage, virtually guaranteeing that it will destroy an enemy siege engine before it can get into range.
Trebuchets are single-use defenses: they will be destroyed when they fire upon an enemy Siege Engine.

---end KGB strategies

In conclusion DON'T PANIC! If you follow these guidelines the worst that can happen is they might get a little gold, or a little bit of resources - you won't lose your soldiers, they can't take over your city or anything like that. Just hunker down and they get NOTHING I tell you, NOTHING!

Also - if you know you are being attacked, then you can always send resources to your alliance member's cities if you have their coords or they are in chat when the attack happens. Just remember, don't panic. If you do lose anything, your alliance will help you build back up.