All Guardians City Build

[Nachos2]

Guys. Im using asking for the guards strategy bcuz i want to have full defense on one city. I got 18 cities only (bcuz im not that active) and that 15 barbs 3 LCs. I want one LC to have PURE DEFENSE bcuz its on the center of the cluster and i want to support from one city to another fast. Guards is the fastest def unit.. So what would be an easier strategy for pure defense? Combination of guards and sents? The war in the world is going on and off so i wanna prepare defenses cuz my barbs currently got 1k lancers 1.5k sents and 4k zerks

If you want a quick moving defense then yes pure guardians works well. If you want a mix that's balanced and still has guardians throw in some lancers, not sentry. Guardians have a higher defense against infantry than they do against mounted units so they're weak against knights and other guardians. Building lancers with guards balances things out. But it's not as high of a defense as mixed lancer/sentry, though it does build quicker and moves quicker.

[Nachos2]

Its common sense and basic logistics. People using an all guard strategy are using one training center. A combined arms approach (one that uses lancer/sentry/guard for defense and zerk/(knight or guard)/ram for offense) will train much faster than one who uses just guards. The logistics piece comes in because using a combined arms approach takes up a more even distribution of resources than doing all of one type. I can restock a pure attack city in about 3.5 days on a WS2/US1 world, using that strategy, and the same goes for a pure defense city.

I'm not saying you're lying, because I don't know how you mix your troops. But if you're building a full farm space in 3.5 days and saying its offense I doubt it's a good build. The most balanced build you can do for offense to be viable against any kind of defense is a zerker knight mix, with roughly 4 zerks per knight. I like to throw in rams to help lessen losses so I build my offensive cities to be 10,000 zerks / 2,400 knights / 600 rams. If you're building a full offense city in 3.5 days I'm assuming you're using more knights and less zerks. This still works, but it makes your attack less balanced and more vulnerable to cities being defended with lancers. It's viable but not as efficient. I've never seen you in game so I'm not calling you out as a player or saying you're bad or anything. I'm just saying the most efficient offensive build takes longer than 3.5 days to build. Defense I can see happen if you mix lancers/guards and do a high amount of lancers.

[LordFirefall]

I'm not saying you're lying, because I don't know how you mix your troops. But if you're building a full farm space in 3.5 days and saying its offense I doubt it's a good build. The most balanced build you can do for offense to be viable against any kind of defense is a zerker knight mix, with roughly 4 zerks per knight. I like to throw in rams to help lessen losses so I build my offensive cities to be 10,000 zerks / 2,400 knights / 600 rams. If you're building a full offense city in 3.5 days I'm assuming you're using more knights and less zerks. This still works, but it makes your attack less balanced and more vulnerable to cities being defended with lancers. It's viable but not as efficient. I've never seen you in game so I'm not calling you out as a player or saying you're bad or anything. I'm just saying the most efficient offensive build takes longer than 3.5 days to build. Defense I can see happen if you mix lancers/guards and do a high amount of lancers.

4 to 1 Zerk to Knight ratio is nice to have, but I'm usually sending them all out to die every 3-4 days. I'll settle for a 2 to 1 ratio in exchange for being able to attack more frequently. As far as rams, I tend to send more than 600, because I typically hit wildly stacked targets, and I want the wall to go down every time.

[Nachos2]

4 to 1 Zerk to Knight ratio is nice to have, but I'm usually sending them all out to die every 3-4 days. I'll settle for a 2 to 1 ratio in exchange for being able to attack more frequently. As far as rams, I tend to send more than 600, because I typically hit wildly stacked targets, and I want the wall to go down every time.

Frequency of attacks is nice when you don't have a lot of cities, but as you get larger and have a large number of cities you don't need to attack with every city to be successful. The quicker you can attack the better, but as the world ages you can still succeed without needing every attack city ready that quickly. Say you have 10 cities. Obviously you'll want all your offensive cities ready to attack on any given moment, so a 2:1 ratio is nice. However if you have 100 cities I highly doubt you'll use them all to attack in every attack you undertake. So going for a more efficient build can be a lot more beneficial to go for a 4:1 ratio. So it's kind of a preference, as well as where you are in your game. Guards don't take longer to build than a highly efficient attack build, or a highly efficient defensive build.

[LordFirefall]

I have well over 100 cities, at the moment and I'm arrayed in 10 regions. While I'm not using them all in every attack, I frequently use every city in multiple regions on every offensive, and send them in again as soon as they are reloaded. Without going to in-depth on how I do it (OPSEC), my methods allow quick regen with minimal effort. As far as a "highly efficient" attack build, that's a matter of perception. If your "highly efficient" attack build requires multiple actions be taken in that city every day for 6 days, I would argue it ceases being highly efficient.

We could debate this for ages (and I have with players in my world and previous worlds). The biggest testament to my strategy is the players that convert after seeing my results, or getting crushed by me and my guildmates. I've lost track of how many guard centric players I've converted over the last 2.5 years.

[Fire820]

To answer the original question: I would discourage you from doing so. In the long run, it'll hurt you more than anything at the current stage of the world you're playing in.

To join in on the debate if I may: I use guard-only cities very sparingly. I use them for quick support only. I see no use in a guard-only approach for any reason except for speed. I use a balance between S and L for defense with guards less than 6 hours away from each city. Since I localize and spread out, the need for numerous guard cities is eliminated. I use a full nuke as offense with a couple knight cities as well. Then I have a few siege cities. Works quite well for me. I haven't lost a city using this strategy even when under multi-player attacks. I take cities 90% of the time with my biggest error in timing issues.

Firefall, I am quite interested in your mixed approach. If you would, send me further details on kakao please.

[DirtySouthATL]

I'm not going to read this entire thread, just offer this.

WHY would you want an entire city full of guardians?

You know you are can stuff 20k zerks into a city and be WAY more effective than having a city full of guardians right?

[Nachos2]

Ok let me settle this debate.

You said you can build a full 20k population city in 3.5 days. I crunched some numbers and its actually possible

L25 B = 1,771 zerks/day
L20 S = 1,102 knights/day
L20 WS = 413 rams/day

You said you make more than 600 rams usually. They don't take long to build, let's assume you're stopping at 800 that's 3,200 farm space.

1,102K=3,306 farm space
1,771Z=1,771 farm space

Together that's 5,077 farm space used per day. Assuming you're working with 20,000 population (for easier calculations)

20,000-3,200(rams)=16,800

16,800/5,077=3.3days

Meaning it takes a minimum of 3 days and 8 hours to max the farm space if you stop at 800 rams.

That build in that time frame means you'll make:
5,313 berserkers
3,306 knights
800 rams

For defense:

Lets say you go with 10,000L and 10,000S building consecutivly.

It takes 9.57 hours to build 1,000 lancer.
9.5*10=95.7/24(hr/day)=3.98 days

It takes 14.58 hours to build 1,000 sentries.
14.58*10=145.8/24(hr/day)=6.07 days

6.07+3.98=10.05 days build time.

Now looking at guardians.

L20 S= 831 Guards/day

831G=3,354 farm space/ day

20,000/3,354=5.96 days to build 5,000 guardians.

Add the time it takes to build the berserker/knight/ram city with the time it takes to build the lancer/sentry city.

3.3+10.05=13.35 days

That's 2 different cities, obviously you can build them at the same time. However that means you get 2 cities full of guardians.

5.96+5.96=11.92 days. That's almost 1 and 1/2 day faster than the other build. But here's where it gets interesting.


Zerks get 50 attacker power per unit. Knights get 110 per unit.

5,077Z*50=253,850
3,306K*110=363,650

363,650+253,850=617,510AP

1 lancer gets 25 defense against infantry units and 50 defense against mounted units. 1 sentry gets 65 defense against infantry units and 25 defense against mounted units.

Lancer:
10,000*25=250,000 I.Defense
10,000*50=500,000 M.Defense
Sentry:
10,000*65=650,000 I.Defense
10,000*25=250,000 M.Defense

Lancer+Sentry:
Infantry Defense
250,000+650,000=900,000 ID
Mounted Defense:
500,000+250,000=750,000 MD

Guardians get 140 infantry defense per unit, 110 mounted defense per unit, and 115 attack power per unit. However don't forget you get 2 guardian cities for a L/S and B/K/R city.

5,000*2=10,000.

10,000*140=1,400,000 ID that's 155% of what the L/S city gives.

10,000*110=1,100,000 MD that's 147% of what the L/S city gives.

10,000*115=1,150,00 Attack Power. That's 186% of what the B/K/R city gives you.

I've laid my case as to why I like full guardian cities in old worlds. Now tell me. Why WOULDN'T you make your cities full guardian?

[Nikhil21]

Guards can be used for both attack and defense and are perfect in a quick paced world, maybe there isn't alot of competition in your world which allows you to have a different build and be effective.
Assuming you have separate offense/defense cities, unless you got all day it won't be easy to defend against attacks stretched out over a while. All guard cities means each and every city is capable of defending itself. And guards are fast, lancers and sentries sometimes are just too slow, especially in old worlds. Guards may not be the best attacking unit or the best defensive unit but they are the best unit. Lol

[LordFirefall]

Nachos - nice math and nice work. However, I never said I was using all foot soldiers for defense. While I won't get into the exact mix I use, I go with a lancer/sentry/guard mix in the defense. I maximize the use of my training centers, whether I'm running offense or defense. My defensive mix takes about 4.5 days to restock fully, but that's still better than 5.96.

I have NEVER said guards weren't a great unit. Yes, they are better, pound for pound, at defense AND offense. What I have said, and will continue to say, is when you factor in retraining time, all guard cities aren't the way to go. Your own math demonstrates that (3.33 days vs 5.96 days). They aren't the best, even when you factor in attack power. When you factor in population unit requirements, zerks and knights both have better attack power, as a ratio of population (50 per pop for Zerks, ~37 per pop for knights, and ~29 for guards).

Nikhil - every world I've been in has had constant war, from early on. I keep a hefty amount of guards around, as a mobile reserve. However, for prepared defenses, I have a lot of foot around as well. With a little analysis, its not hard to predict what cities the enemy will attack, so I rarely get caught unprepared.