Bait

[Sternist]

I was recently informed a large player was threatening smaller guilds for resources and cities. He had no guild but had a large number of zerks, lancers, and a few 20k cities to back him up. This isn't the first time I've seen this happen and thought of a way to possibly combat this tactic.

A player is needed with a large amount of defensive troops and/or a number of guild members willing to send support. The guild member who will act as bait must send all but a skeleton crew of troops in their city to a neighboring guild member. Only a few troops should be left in the bait cities, if any city is quick scouted it must look under guarded. Once this is done taunting messages are sent to the threatening player. Even if the player has a lot of troops it doesn't mean they are all in the same city and must be sent in separate attacks. Once attacks are incoming and it's past the troop pullback time, troops can be brought back and support can be called to decimate the incoming attacks leaving his cities unguarded. Obviously this strategy needs tweaking depending on the situation, this is only a bare bone explanation. What do y'all think?

[foehammer47592]

Or you could just team up and cap his cities. 5 attack cities to 1 target city should work.

[bananabandana]

You gotta watch out for scouts. In Tier 3 worlds, T3 scouts will see any outgoing armies from the spied city, so they will be able to see your army. In T1 worlds, T1 scouts in a rally where no scouts die should have the same effect. Also, if this player is doing so well with no guild, they are most likely spending some $$, so they are likely to have a few instant spies ready, which also have the ability to see your outgoing.

Would be a fun troll if you managed to pull it off though.

[Sternist]

He was using his gold to scout incoming troops as well as cities. I send multiple waves of attacks, some fake and some troop heavy, if he is spending gold, it will make him spend a lot, or at least think about where he spends it. The bait city does not have to be a strong player, as long as a bigger player has troops ready to support him. The team up method wasnt working, they were to far from his cities and he was able to move his guards around from one to another before attacks hit.

[Nikhil21]

It's fun if it works but there are many chances it wouldn't. Let's say he sent a ram fake with scouts from all his cities and you thought he finally took the bait and you send all your support there. He sees it and starts attacking other people because they sent their support away.

Most reliable way is send a clearing wave to all his cities followed by scholar trains. Most usually barb when I do that.

[Sternist]

I use gold too I would look at what he sends before I chance an attack. What if he dodges your clearing wave, supports his cities and kills your scholar waves?

[MechaStorm]

time your scholar waves to hit just seconds after your clearing wave then. its very hard for them to time it down to the last second if he has simultaneous attacks within seconds. thats what i do and its never failed

[Nikhil21]

Set a landing time, sniping one wave isn't hard, it would take a very experienced player to snipe all waves on each city

[MechaStorm]

see nikhil agree with me

[Sternist]

What if it is an experienced player? He sends his troops out a few minutes before the clearing wave hits and recalls them so they return a few seconds after. He doesn't need to snipe all waves, if he kills one scholar in your wave it could keep you from taking the city.