Thursday, 12 August 2010

examples for attacking

Example 1:

10 Slingers vs 10 Swordsmen is 230 vs 300 (230/300), however 10 Slingers vs 10 Hoplites is 230/70. Therefore it does make sense to send Slingers against Hoplites but not against a player who has only Swordsmen - then its better to send Hoplites instead. 10 Hoplites vs 10 Swordsmen is 160 vs 80, much better isn't it? 

Another example - If a player has only Swordsmen  (lets say 100) then his total defense is:
1400 blunt def / 800 sharp def / 3000 range def

The strongest is range def, then blunt and weakest sharp. It means that its probably better to send sharp attack units rather than blunt and for sure not range attack.
So his strongest point is range defense, that's why if you send Slingers you will lose quite a lot of them. The best option is to send sharp attack units - Hoplites. If you do some simulations and calculations you will see that. To kill 100 swords you need to send:
- 132 Slingers (you lose 131; 25740 resources)
- 27 Horsemen (you lose 25; 18000 res)
- 52 Hoplites (you lose 50; 11250 res)



Example 2:

When there are few types of defending units, then you have to sum them all, for example: 10 Hoplites vs 5 Swordsmen +5 Archers is 160 vs 165(40+125). In that case it would be better to send 10 Slingers against them -> 10 Slingers vs 5 Swordsmen +5 Archers is 230 vs 210 (150+60) - just a bit better. With small numbers the difference is not that big but when you send thousands of units it does accumulate.

If you send an attack made of different units, for example Slingers (range attack) and Horsemen (blunt attack) then compare range attack to range defense and blunt attack to blunt defense.



Example 3: Effectiveness

Its easy to say which units will be the most effective against any particular defense - you simply divide total attack by the total corresponding type of defense. Lets say you have 3 nukes: 1 blunt (500 Horsemen), 1 sharp (1500 Hoplites) and 1 range (1500 Slingers). All you have to do is to multiply a unit attack power by number of units, so: 500x55 (for Horsemen), 1500x16 (for Hoplites) and 1500x23 (for Slingers), which is: 27500 blunt, 24000 sharp and 34500 range attack. Now lets say our enemy has 400 Swordsmen, 600 Archers and 500 Hoplites. That makes: 18200 blunt, 24200 sharp and 22700 range defense.

Yes the smallest one is his blunt defense but it doesn't mean its his weakest point! Its not, because you have to take into account the power of your attacking units (some of them are stronger than others). Therefore we divide attack/defense:
Blunt 27500 / 18200 = 1.51
Sharp 24000 / 24200 = 0.99
Range 34500 / 22700 =  1.52

The winners are Slingers - they will be the most effective nuke against this particular defense. Mind that I compared nukes made of the same amount of population (Farm Spaces). If you want to do a similar thing but without any specific numbers, you can simply divide attack power of a single unit by the corresponding type of defense, so 18.3/18200 (55/3=18.3), 16/24200 or 23/22700. These will be very small numbers but the main rule is the same - the biggest one shows the most effective type of attack against that particular defense.

If we put these numbers into the Grepolis simulator (in Agora) we will see that we lose 305 Horsemen (61% casualties) or 908 Slingers (60.5% causalities). By using the most effective nuke we lose less units (the % of the lost units is the lowest). Not a big difference, because 1.51 is very close to 1.52. However this is only an example and things can look totally different and so the results.



Example 4: Efficiency

There are some situations in which you would think that its better to use Horsemen over Slingers. However if your goal is to gain advantage over your enemy in resources, then you should always compare yours and enemy's lost resources. Example: you attack 800 Swordsmen 600 Archers and 700 Hoplites. In this case 1500 Slingers "lose" the battle but 500 Horsemen "win" it. You will lose all your Slingers and kill 757 Swordsmen, 568 Archers and 663 Hoplites or you will kill all enemy units and lose 498 Horsemen. The 2nd situation looks better right? Its not if we count resources.

What you should do is to count resources used to produce 757 Sw, 568 Ar and 663 Hops and then deduct resources used in production of 1500 Slingers. So it is as simple as: resources used to produce units killed by Slingers minus resources used to produce Slingers. This is the "net effect". You compare resources lost by both sides.

Do the same with Horsemen and their victims. Now compare both net results. Ive got the numbers for you: defender lost 103 695 resources more than you when you used Slingers and 59 940 more than you when you used Horsemen. So even though you didn't kill all his units with Slingers, you still managed to get bigger advantage in resources than when using Horsemen.

Another example: sometimes by using the most effective nuke you will lose the least amount of units but these units can be so expensive that it would be cheaper to use less effective ones and lose more of them. Here comes an example.

Our enemy has this time 500 Swordsmen, 500 Archers and 500 Hoplites. Again we attack with one of the 3 nukes. I will skip all the previous steps and tell you straight away that the attack/defense ratio will be: 1.45 blunt, 0.36 sharp and 1.41 range, which suggests that the most effective nuke will be made of Horsemen. If we put these numbers into the in-game simulator we will see that we lose 321 Horsemen (64.2% casualties) or 995 Slingers (66.3% causalities).

It would be logical to use a Horsemen nuke then, however try to count resources used to produce those lost units. Its 231 120 total resources used to build 321 Horsemen and 194 025 to make Slingers. As you can see we save 37k resources by using bit less effective nuke.

The situation will change if we increase range and lower blunt defense. So with 635 Swordsmen, 500 Archers and 365 Hoplites, it will be just a tiny bit more efficient to use Horsemen. The attack/defense would be: 1.49 for Horsemen and 1.25 for Slingers. The obvious conclusion is that Horsemen are more expensive than Slingers and therefore their advantage in attack power/defense (effectiveness) over Slingers must be much bigger in order to make their attack more efficient.

Another example:
Lets say that defense is made of 25 Swordsmen, 50 Archers and 25 Hoplites.
1100 blunt def / 1750 sharp def / 1525 range def

Again we would think that sending blunt attack (Horsemen) is the way to go. However the the problem with Horsemen is that they are much more expensive than Slingers. I will remind cost/attack: slingers 8.48, Horsemen 13.09. So even though Horsemen have here the advantage in attk/def ratio, their cost is their disadvantage. We need to compare costs of units lost.
- 22 Horsemen (you lose 20; 14400 res)
- 68 Slingers (you lose 66; 12870 res)
- 111 Hoplites (you lose 110; 24750 res)

As we can see Slingers are the winner here due to their low cost. So it will be better to send Slingers than Horsemen . I would say that Horsemen are good choice when the difference between blunt def and range defense is quite big.



Example 5: Choosing type of attack

a) The attacked player has 30 Swordsmen/100 Archers /30 Hoplites (strong sharp defense) - we decide to not send Hoplites/Chariots at all as it would increase our costs a lot.
b) 10 Swordsmen/70 Archers /80 Hoplites (very weak range defense) - we decide to focus mainly on Slingers in our attack.



Example 6: Mixing units in attack

Lets come back to the example when we had defense made of 25 Swordsmen, 50 Archers and 25 Hoplites (1100 blunt def / 1750 sharp def / 1525 range def)

We decided back then to send 68 Slingers, but lets say we have no more Slingers . But we have 20 horses. We should send them as well!
Add 20 Horsemen and results change: 35 Slingers lost and 7 Horsemen lost = 11865 res. We lost less resources not because mixing offensive units is better than a nuke (1 type unit attack), but because we sent more troops, so the total attack was higher. The proportion attack/defense was higher (damage done by attacking forces was higher) so loses were lower.
I can prove that: if we put all resources needed to build 20 Horsemen to make Slingers we will get 73 (almost 74) more Slingers. So instead of sending 68 Slingers + 20 Horsemen we could send 141 Slingers (73+68). That would give better result than the one with Horsemen: 57 Slingers dead = 11115 res.
Difference is not huge but its because in both cases most of the attack (of resources we used in this attack) is made of Slingers. Basically in this example Slingers give the best result, Horsemen worse, while Hoplites will only increase costs not adding anything (see below).

However it doesn't mean that always more is better. Adding Hoplites will increase costs.
Lets use 68 Slingers + 20 Horsemen simulation and add to it 30 Hoplites; the result is:
29 Slingers , 16 Hoplites and 6 Horsemen dead = 13575 res (with no hops - 11865 res lost). We paid more than if we just skipped Hoplites at all. If we put more Hoplites in this attack we will lose even more! (send 68 Slingers 20 Horsemen and 111 Hoplites -result: 19 Slingers, 37 Hoplites, 4 Horsemen dead=14910 res lost) Add extra 100 Hoplites and attack with 68sl 20 hr and 210 Hoplites = 15495 resources lost!

Example 7: catapults

Remember that catapults are not stand alone attack units. They should be treated as something to be escorted. Catapults cant be sent alone or with 50 Archers...even if you send 100 catapults it wont help. To destroy more walls you can try to send less Slingers with them. For example instead of sending 1000 slingers + 20 catapults you can send 700 slingers + 40 catapults .

However it all depends how many defensive units the enemy has. Its all about proportions. Send not enough slingers and you will destroy 1-2 lvl of the City Wall more but kill 2 times less enemy units.

Lets imagine that the enemy has 500 swordsmen, 300 archers, 250 hoplites and 50 horsemen. Altogether its 21 550 range defense. Now, 1000 slingers = 23 000 range attack + 20 catapults (2000 range attack). If we send more catapults then we will be able to send less slingers. So with 40 catapults we can send only 700 slingers (20 catapults x 15 population = 300 population).
700 slingers + 40 catapults = 20 100 range attackk. Still ok against 21 550. However if we send 550 slingers + 50 catapults then we will get only 17 650 range attack. That against 21 550 defense doesn't look as good any more. Go to the simulator and check how many units we killed each time. 40 catapults was still ok (destroyed 6 lvls of walls)  but 50 pushed it to far and we killed many less  defensive units while destroying only 1 more walls lvl (7).
20, 40, 50 these are not magic numbers - all depends what force you are facing. Basically if there are to many defensive units I wouldn't attack at all - the ratio of kills/lost is terrible and not worth my resources.

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