Saturday 12 May 2012

Perfect Nuke


Would you be interested in getting my calculators and guides on your smartphone? Vote Now!!!



Everything about nukes in Grepolis and their use (attack forces composition, city builds and other requirements).

Definition of a Perfect Nuke - its an attack which is going to hit your enemy so hard that he will be raging on the Grepolis forum in the next few minutes after seeing what it left him with - a battle report. It is an attack made of the same type of units, only Slingers, Horsemen, Hoplites, Light Ships or mythical units. Here is an example of a perfect nuke:




I will say something that most of the people reading guides hate - in Grepolis a lot of things are relative, situational and depend on particular circumstances or players goals. This involves nukes as well. Therefore a perfect nuke is perfect if it helps you to achieve your goals. You might have 3 different goals:
  1. Short term - the most effective nuke (hit your enemy as hard as possible, without looking at costs or long term results). There is always one type of attack (blunt, sharp or range) which will deal the most damage to the enemy defenses (will be the most effective). If you put all your available population into it and hit your enemy's vulnerable point, you will blast him away. Vulnerable point? Yes, this might be a Light Ships fleet without any Biremes to defend them, or a land units nuke or a badly made defense, which ignores one type of attack. 
  2. Medium term - the most efficient nuke in terms of time needed to rebuild lost units (hit your enemy as hard as possible but losing units that can be quickly replaced). These types of nukes might be needed when you fight a strong player and you don't want to let him to recover. You will not defeat him in the first battle but shortly after.
  3. Long term - the most efficient nuke in terms of resources (hit your enemy as hard as possible but with minimal costs). These types of nukes you should use during long conflicts which are more about endurance than a quick knock out. Often the most effective type of attack is the most efficient one but not always (more about it later).

For a perfect nuke you might need a spy report and your enemy to not move! If the defending units composition change, your nuke might hit a solid wall. My point is that, not everything depends on what you do, but also on how your enemy reacts, if he reacts... but first things first,  we need a nuke.

*** A comment about catapults ***

For me a "nuke" is an attack made of only 1 type of units and so the this guide does not cover catapults, which does not mean I have something against them, just the opposite (please read my guide about catapults and city walls for more details). In my opinion it is best to first grind walls down and then start sending nukes.

Catapults should be added when you attack units hiding behind walls - build less units and add them if you want to but it will not be a nuke per definition. An attack made of 2 types of units is not a nuke for me. We can argue about definitions and names and to be honest I don't really care how you call it. I only explain here what I understand by "nuke".

So yes, you can and should add catapults to those "nukes" if you need to but then you will just need to adjust numbers accordingly.

*** A comment about Fast Transport Ships***
If you want to catch your enemy with his pants down, you have to be QUICK. Surprise cannot be underestimated. Also the less units defender gathers the better for your nuke.

Now I know some people who would start whining now that regular Transport Ships can take more units on making nukes much better and stronger...well guess what. As usual I would call them dumb-asses. FTS are the only valuable option for big attack, period.

FTS need less population to be built and after Bunks the difference in cargo capacity (saved FS) between them and regular Transport Ships is minimal but still they are 1.9 times quicker. If you want to read more about it go to my guide about FTS and Bunks. Also if you don't believe me and are too lazy to make calculations yourself, use my Units Comparator.


Effectiveness and Efficiency of your nukes


Effectiveness
As you should already know, the effectiveness of a nuke depends on the defense composition that is being hit (if you don't know it yet, then I suggest reading my guide about Attacking). People build different numbers of Swordsmen, Archers and Hoplites, and its impossible to say which nuke will always be the most effective one - it has to be calculated for each individual defense.

Calculating 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 500 Swordsmen, 400 Archers and 600 Hoplites. That makes: 20200 blunt, 21200 sharp and 24000 range defense.

The smallest one is his blunt defense but it doesn't mean it is 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 / 20200 = 1.36
Sharp 24000 / 21200 = 1.13
Range 34500 / 24000 =  1.44

The winners are Slingers - they will be the most effective nuke against this particular defense. As you can see they are not clear winners because are only slightly more effective than Horsemen against that specific defense but still they are the most effective force to be used in this scenario.

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 of attacking units, then you can simply divide attack power of a single offensive unit by the corresponding type of defense, so 18.3/20200 (55/3=18.3), 16/21200 or 23/24000. 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 346 Horsemen (69.2% casualties) or 971 Slingers (64.7% causalities) or 1293 Hoplites (86.2%). By using the most effective nuke we lose less units (the % of the lost units is the lowest). Not a big difference, because 1.36 is very close to 1.44. However this is only an example and things can look totally different and so the results.

That rule applies to all kind of attacks, even those against much bigger defenses which will kill all your attacking units. In that case, the more effective an attack is, the more defending units will die. You see, in Grepolis you have only 2 types of battles: those in which you lose all your units and those in which your enemy lose all of his. In Grepolis units fight till the total annihilation of the opposing side and there can be only 2 outcomes. The only exception are battles when there are some Transport Ships left for some reason etc. As a general rule if attack>defense then all defending units die, and if attack<defense then all attacking units will die - its that simple!

So basically the more effective attack is then: a) when Attack>Defense, less attacking units will be lost or b) when Attack<Defense, more defending units will be killed. In the situation "a" its always better to send a more efficient nuke. To be able to check which one will be more effcient you have calculate the net effect of your attacks, which will be explained below.

I prepared a calculator which counts for you all of these things. All you have to do is to type in numbers. You can find it in my Useful Tools tab (first from the top).


Efficiency
Regarding efficiency its bit more complicated but not that much. You just need to take into account costs of units lost or their time of production.

Time of production
Simply do in-game simulations using the Grepolis simulator and put number of units lost into my Production Time Calculator to see which units you can rebuild faster. Of course you have to take into account your current Barracks level and "Conscription" (research) availability in the city producing those units.

Net Effect
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/def 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.


A Slingers nuke with some catapults. Look at the resources lost by me and my enemy (in resources it was 1:9 for me) and it is still a weak nuke, with only 1k Slingers and no Divine Power! I was attacking blind (got lucky) and my travel time was 48+ hours...thank gods for people who never read anyone's guides ;)


This is why I said in the beginning that choosing your nuke depends on your goals. If your goal is to simply kill all enemy units then use the most effective nuke. If your goal is to save resources or drain your enemy then calculate the net effect and see which attack is cheaper.

The best way to know if you save resources is to put number of lost units into my Units Calculator and compare results. Unfortunately my Units Calculator is not capable of calculating the efficiency for you, as it would require me to know the exact battle formula used in Grepolis. Therefore you can always just check loses in the Grepolis simulator and put them into my calculator which will then show you difference in lost resources.



Different types of nukes


Let me present you a list of possible nukes with their description, related city build and research. If you don't understand some details read my other guides about land units (their parameters, population cap, types of attack etc) and Mythical units (comparison of all units).

Size of a nuke
How big nuke you can make depends on how much population you can or want to "sacrifice" in your city. The less population you put into different buildings, the bigger your nuke will be. Also regarding land nukes, you have to consider how big your LS escort should be. For example it can be 50 LS (which should be enough vs 200 Biremes) or 75 LS (300 BMs). I will not tell you how big your escort should be, you know the rules and its up to you how much you want to risk (if you don't know what I'm talking about check this guide - breakthrough). The bottom line - don't be a fool like this one here:






Same goes with city templates. Here are my propositions but I am not saying they will always work for you - in Grepolis lot of things are situational. More about city specialisation here.

Lastly the more cities you have the more "hardcore" your nuke cities can be. Your first cities can be "hardcore" as well if you chose so but remember that you will not be ready for longer conflicts if you keep your temple, marketplace, production camps levels low. When you have more than ~10 cities it should be rather easy to start making the most powerful nukes out there (at least regular ones, because for mythical nukes you will need lot of time and Favour Points).

Production Camps
For each nuke I propose a different set up of production camps levels. There is always the most important material, secondary and the least important one. For example in a city making LS nukes, the most important will be Timber Camp (wood), secondary will be Silver Mine and the least important Quarry. The most important camp will be always at the maximum level. Then I calculate how much time (days) it needs to collect enough resources to rebuild a whole nuke. After that I'm able to calculate on which level must be other camps to produce necessary amount of resources in the same time. That allows me to reduce their size to the minimum level and save some Farm Spaces for a bigger nuke.

However its just a guide - template which you should tailor to your own situation. There are different types of islands and they have different materials availability ("+" and "-") but also their farming villages trade differently. Therefore you should take into account both factors when deciding about level of your secondary production camps.

For example best islands for Light Ships cities are those with "+" wood and "-" stone. However on some islands wood might not be on "+" but there will be plenty of villages selling wood for stone or silver. In that case you can build up your secondary production camps to a higher level to be able to trade those extra resources for wood. Production of wood in this example is the main factor that limits the speed of your nuke construction, so if you can gather more wood through trading, you should take advantage of that possibility. Unless you really don't need to rebuild your nuke quickly.

Difference between 2 production camps lvl 40, one on "+" and the second on "-" is only 1680 resources per day. Between "neutral" and "+" its only 840 resources of difference, which is less than what you can earn in 2 trade transactions.



Nukes Comparison


Table below compares all nukes presented in this guide. Army FS, represents Farm Spaces used to build a nuke - mythical flying nukes (Harpies and Manticores) don't need ships, so more population could be used to make them (they are the strongest in the game). By manipulating city templates that I proposed, you can try your own numbers. Army+FTS shows how much population was used to build units and Fast Transport Ships.

All number are rounded up. I used 2366 FS for each group (however Manticores or Harpies used a bit less). There are slight differences in used FS for each regular nuke but I don't think they matter that much.

Land units have 2 numbers: the first one takes into account FS used for FTS (Fast Transport Ships), and the number in brackets shows no ships used (land attack on the same island). 
None of these numbers take into account FS or resources used for the escort (Light Ships).




A/FS - Attack per Farm Space.
You can see here which units provide the most attack per FS.

A/FS/SRD -  Attack per Farm Space divided by the Strongest Regular Defense.
The Strongest Regular Defense for Distance attacks is 30 (Swordsman), for Sharp 25 (Archer) and for Blunt I counted 18 (Hoplite - yes I know chariot has 19 but Hoplites are more often used).
For example a Slinger has A/FS equal 17.5 but its strongest counter unit is a Swordsman with 30 range defense (so its 17.5/30=0.6). Of course the highest number indicates the most effective unit.

Here you can see why blunt attack units are so strong. There are no regular defensive units that much their attack power, however it comes with a high price (making them quite often less efficient than Slingers - more about it later).

A/FS/AD - Attack per Farm Space divided by the average defense.
The Average Defense is a sum of 1 Swordsman, 1 Archer and 1 Hoplite defense strengths of the same type divided farther by 3. For example AD against range units will be Swordsman range def + Archer range def + Hoplite range def, so (30+12+7)/3. Of course the highest number indicates the most effective unit.

It is just an example, because I don't think everyone prepares a defense made of the same amount of Swordsmen, Archers and Hoplites. I put it there just to give you an idea how looks the effectiveness of different types of nuke against an "average" defense. "A/FS" and "A/FS/SD" could give you a wrong impression. It doesn't happen often that you hit a defense made of only Swordsmen with your Slingers nuke. On average Slingers are as strong as Horsemen.

TR/A - Total Resources per Total Attack
Efficiency of your attacking forces (how much 1 Attack cost in resources).
The smaller the number the better.
How is it calculated?
Total Resources (Wood+Rock+Silver) used to construct ships and build units divided by the Total Attack value of the transported units. Please note it only compares regular resources - Favour Points cannot be included but remember about them.

Slingers Nuke


This is the most basic nuke in Grepolis and my favorite one. Remember though, only because they are the strongest regular units and the cheapest ones that doesn't mean they are always the most effective or efficient force to use - as explained above it depends on the enemy defense composition.
Best islands for Slingers factories are the ones with "+" stone and "-" silver.

Strength: 17.5 (23 excluding Fast Transport Ships) Attack/FS (highest in the Distance attack category) - there is no stronger Distance attack nuke than Slingers, including mythical creatures (Erinyes).
Full Nuke's Strength:  41.4k Range Attack 
Efficiency: they are the cheapest offensive units in the game with resources/attack 12.3 (8.5 excluding Fast Transport Ships). 
Counter units: Swordsmen, Cerberi and Cyclops.



 Nuke:
Slingers
1801
Fast Transport Boats
113
Light Ships
50


City:
This city will produce your units with maximum speed and have practical level of senate and production camps (which can be taken down to further increase the size of your nuke). Production Camps are organised in such a way that they will produce with equal speed (23 days) enough resources to rebuild your whole nuke and its escort (which won't be always necessary). Of course they don't take into account resources availability on an island ("+" and "-") so adjust them accordingly. Regarding temple, remember to have at least total temple level of 50-75 per god (if you don't understand this concept, visit my guide about City Specialisation or Total War - Resources).


Barracks
30
For fast production of your units
Farm
40
No population cost
Warehouse
30
No population cost
Academy
28
You need Battering Ram research for LS escort
Cave
10
Low population cost (9 FS)
Senate
15
After building Thermal Baths you can take senate down - this level allows you to construct all regular buildings
Harbour
15
To rebuild LS escort and sometimes transport ships
Temple
0-10
Depends on how many cities worship the chosen god
Marketplace
5
That allows you to trade with only 1 village at a time
City wall
0
Try to not to build nukes in a city which is under threat of attacks. You will need lvl 6 for Temple. Build Temple to the level you like and then destroy walls for a bigger nuke.
Thermal Baths
1
You must have them


I assume you will mainly need to rebuild Slingers and Light Ships.

Quarry
40
You will need ~23 days to produce enough stone, wood and silver for 1790 Slingers and 50 LS
Timber Camp
35
Silver Mine
25

You might have some farming villages trading stone for wood or silver and in that case its worth to build up Silver Mine or Timber Camp bit higher. Naturally size of your production camps depends on how often you use your nuke (and need to rebuild it) or how much resources you can farm from other players or  deliver from other cities.

To save even more population for your nuke you can take down Harbour a bit if your ships rebuild fast enough (as fast as land units).

Obligatory research:
Breakthrough, Phalanx, Battering Ram, Trainer, Conscription, Shipwright, Light transport boat, Bunks, Plow, Ceramics



Horsemen Nuke


 
Horsemen are the strongest in blunt attack among regular units, however Harpies will provide much stronger blunt nuke (they are stronger and don't need ships so you can build a bigger nuke).
Best islands for Horsemen factories are the ones with "+" silver and "-" stone.

Strength: 13.9 (18.3 excluding FTS) blunt attack/FS (stronger are only Harpies with 19 attack/FS ). Full Harpies nuke will be stronger than a Horsemen one for another reason - they can fly and don't need ships.
Full Nuke's Strength: 33k Blunt Attack
Efficiency: 17.9 (13.1 excluding FTS) resources/attack (Harpies are bit cheaper if we don't count Favour Points)
Counter units:  Pegasus, Medusa, Cerberus, Cyclops, Minotaur, Chariot, Hoplit


Nuke:
Horsemen
600
Fast Transport Boats
113
Light Ships
50


City:
Its basically the same to the Slingers one with the exception of Production Camps.

Silver Mine
40
You will need ~30.5 days to produce enough wood, stone and silver for 600 Horsemen and 50 LS
Timber Camp
34
Quarry
17

For more details regarding other city buildings and research check Slingers nuke part.




Hoplites Nuke


Hoplites are the strongest in sharp attack among regular units, however Manticores will provide much stronger sharp nuke (they are much stronger and don't need ships so you can build a bigger nuke) and will be cheaper as well (if we don't count Favour Points). 
Best islands for Hoplites factories are the ones with "+" silver and "-" wood.

Strength: 12.2 (16 excluding FTS) sharp attack/FS (stronger are Manticore 21 A/FS and Medusa)
Full Nuke's Strength:  29.5k Sharp Attack
Efficiency: 19.6 (14.1 excluding FTS) resources/attack (Manticores are cheaper with only 11.4 resources/attack)
Counter units:  Centaur, Archer, Medusa 


Nuke:
Hoplites
1840
Fast Transport Boats
115
Light Ships
50


City:
Its basically the same to the Slingers one with the exception of Production Camps.

Silver Mine
40
you will need ~37.5 days to produce enough wood, stone and silver for 1840 Hoplites and 50 LS
Quarry
22
Timber Camp
11

 For more details regarding other city buildings and research check Slingers nuke part.




Light Ships Nuke


There is no other alternative to the Light Ships nuke. Hydras cant be mass build and are to slow.
Best islands for Light Ships factory are the ones with "+" wood and "-" stone. You will need tons of wood, so instead of looking at "+" and "-" of different materials, better check how local farming villages trade them.


Nuke:
Light Ships
290


City:
Harbour
30
For the maximum production speed of your fleet
Farm
40
No population cost
Warehouse
30
No population cost
Academy
28
You need Battering Ram research
Cave
10
Low population cost (9 FS)
Senate
15
After building Thermal Baths you can take senate down - this level allows you to construct all regular buildings
Barracks
0-5
Get rid of them when destroying your farming units if you had them. You need lvl 5 to build Academy, so make that first before demolishing.
Temple
15
Depends on how many cities worship the chosen god
Marketplace
5
That allows you to trade with only 1 village at a time
City wall
0
Try to not to build nukes in a city which is under threat of attacks. You will need lvl 6 for Temple. Build Temple to the level you like and then destroy walls for a bigger nuke.
Thermal Baths
1
You must have them



Timber Camp
40
You will need ~45 days to produce enough wood, stone and silver for 290 Light Ships
Silver Mine
27
Quarry
12

You might have some farming villages trading Wood for Stone or Silver and in that case its worth to build up Silver Mine or Quarry bit higher. Naturally size of your production camps depends on how often you use your nuke (and need to rebuild it) or how much resources you can farm from other players or deliver from other cities.

Obligatory research:
Battering Ram, Shipwright, Mathematics, Plow, Ceramics. You can even invest in the City Guard.



Manticore Nuke


Manticores make the strongest nukes in the game. Even though their attack/FS is lower than Medusas, they don't need ships to be transported or escorted and so you can make many of them. Manticores are very offensive units - the ratio between offensive and defensive stats is 3.2 to 1. They can fly to the other islands, over the enemy's Biremes and hit land units avoiding sea battle.

Strength: 21 sharp attack/FS
Full Nuke's Strength:  62.3k Sharp Attack
Efficiency: 11.4 resources/attack (which is rather cheap and cheaper than Hoplite)
Counter units:  Centaur, Archer, Medusa


Nuke:
Manticores
66-68


City:
Barracks
5
You will not be able to build many Manticores per day.
Farm
40
No population cost
Warehouse
30
No population cost
Academy
22
For Plow (Phalanx dont affect mythicial units in regular worlds)
Cave
10
Low population cost (9 FS)
Senate
15
After building Thermal Baths you can take senate down - this level allows you to construct all regular buildings
Temple
15
You need that level to build Manticores
Marketplace
5
That allows you to trade with only 1 village at a time
Harbour
0
You don’t need it in this city
City wall
0
Try to not to build nukes in a city which is under threat of attacks. You will need lvl 6 for Temple. Build Temple to the level you like and then destroy walls for a bigger nuke
Thermal Baths
1
You must have them


Timber Camp
40
You will need ~33.5 days to produce enough wood, stone and silver for 64 Manticores. However you will not be able to queue more than 1 at a time, since you need 405 FPs to make one unit.
Silver Mine
32
Quarry
29

You need 405 Favor Points to build 1 Manticore. If you cant build more than 1 a day then you could take down Production camps to very low levels if you dont care about resources production for other cities. With these levels you will have enough resources to build 1 Manticore a day and have enough FS for 66 Manticores.


Timber Camp
24
Silver Mine
19
Quarry
18

Obligatory research:
Phalanx, Trainer, Conscription, Plow, Meteorology, Ceramics. You can even invest in the City Guard.



Harpy Nuke



Harpies make very strong nukes. Harpies are the most offensive "minded" units in Grepolis. That means the ratio between offensive and defensive stats is 4.5 to 1, which makes them absolutely useless in defense but perfect in attack. Their worst enemies are other mythical creatures (Pegasus, Medusa, Cerberus, even Cyclops). They can fly to the other islands, over the enemy's Biremes and hit land units avoiding sea battle. Harpies are also great farming units (can carry lot of loot).

Strength: 19 blunt attack/FS (Horseman 13.9 (18.3 excluding FTS) attack/FS)
Full Nuke's Strength:  57k Blunt Attack
Efficiency: 12.6 resources/attack (less than Horseman)
Counter units:  Pegasus, Medusa, Cerberus, Cyclops, Minotaur, Chariot, Hoplite


Nuke:
Harpies
214


City:
Barracks
5
Upgrade them IF the speed of production holds you back.
Farm
40
No population cost
Warehouse
30
No population cost
Academy
22
For Plow (Phalanx dont affect mythicial units in regular worlds)
Cave
10
Low population cost (9 FS)
Senate
15
After building Thermal Baths you can take senate down - this level allows you to construct all regular buildings
Temple
16
You need level 5 to build Harpies
Marketplace
5
That allows you to trade with only 1 village at a time
Harbour
0
You don’t need it in this city
City wall
0
Try to not to build nukes in a city which is under threat of attacks. You will need lvl 6 for Temple. Build Temple to the level you like and then destroy walls for a bigger nuke
Thermal Baths
1
You must have them


Timber Camp
40
You will need ~39.5 days to produce enough wood, stone and silver for 208 Harpies.
Silver Mine
35
Quarry
13

Obligatory research:
Phalanx, Trainer, Conscription, Plow, Meteorology, Ceramics. You can even invest in the City Guard.






101 comments:

  1. and thanks again
    learned a lot from you GROM !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I like when people can learn something from my site so glad to hear that. If you ever find something that does not sound right please don't hesitate and discuss it by using a comment box. This way my guides can get only better. Thanks.

      Delete
    2. which r the best islands for manticore and harpy nukes?

      Delete
    3. I dont want to sound cheeky but you can figure it out by looking at the Production Camps levels. For Harpies the highest one is Timber Camp but Silver mine is high as well so I would say Timber"+" and Stone"-". Same with Manties.

      However I dont think that resources availability is that important in case of mythical creatures - you cant build many of them at once because of limited amount of Favor Points. Dont worry to much about it. Also always check what Farming Villages are selling, that might recompensate "+" and "-" thingy.

      Delete
    4. thanks for prompt answer and such a amazing site.

      Delete
  2. Man, I've learned more from your guides than any other resource. Absolutely keep it up!

    ReplyDelete
  3. GROM,

    it's been a while from when I read this forum. I thought you stopped updating it :P This is a well formatted website, as it was before! :)

    LIEUTENANT CAKE

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well I did for a while but then I came back :)

      Delete
  4. I was dropping a link to this site off in a forum and called back to see you were back and writing again.

    This is great news as your site inspired me to really learn the art of playing a really great game.

    Thank you

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yup, this website really helps us all out. It has helped me understand a lot of things, like nukes, how the wall works, this efficiency thing. :) I never knew about that. This is a great website and I will continue to read it because you explain things in great detail. I'll also show this to a few of my friends.

    LIEUTENANT CAKE

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The efficiency don't have to always take a priority over effectiveness. It really comes down to your strategy, needs and goals. The efficiency really matters in my opinion against players who are as big or bigger than you and who give you a lot of trouble. If they are as skilled as you, then your war changes into a longer conflict that will not be resolved in a single battle but in series of them.

      It might be hard to take a city from a guy who has plenty of them and therefore making him weaker by focusing on draining his resources in series of successful battles, is a very effective way of destroying him or at least grabbing his cities.

      PS Ive just added an extra information in the part talking about effectiveness, so have a look there as well, hope it helps a bit.

      Delete
  6. Regarding the two paragraphs under "Calculating effectiveness," I want to point out an error of the math, without disagreeing with the conclusions.

    1500 multiplied by 16 (number of hoplites times sharp attack value) is 24,000 and not 8,000. Maybe the number 500 was entered as a typo instead of 1500.

    For the line "Sharp 8000 / 24200 = 0.33", it should then read "Sharp 24000 / 24200 = 0.99."

    My other comment about this is that 400 Swords / 600 Archers / 500 Hoplites is arbitrary. That is not to say that this is an error, and you will of course find players stacking archers quite often. But for consistency with observations elsewhere in your article, you could instead be using the defensive stats of 500 Swords, 500 Archers, and 500 Hoplites. This keeps with the theme of comparing how effective units are when equal farm space is used on them. (And it prevents you from being accused of being too harsh on a hoplite's sharp damage - there's no need to skew the numbers to show its inefficiency!)

    Using equal numbers of defensive units instead, there is a total 19,000 blunt defensive value, a total 22,500 sharp defensive value, and a total 24,500 distance defensive value. With these numbers, you get these results for a comparison of attacks by equal farm space (i.e., comparing 1 horseman to 3 hoplites to 3 slingers) against a defense equally proportionate by farm space (i.e., a defense that builds 1 swordsman to 1 archer to 1 hoplite).

    27500 Blunt Attack / 19000 Blunt Defense = 1.447 A/D
    24000 Sharp Attack / 22500 Sharp Defense = 1.067 A/D
    34500 Distance Attack / 24500 Distance Defense = 1.408 A/D

    The result is the same, of course: horsemen and slingers are nearly equal in this kind of comparison, with hoplites coming up defective when considered simply as an attack unit. (For balance reasons, of course, since it is also useful defensively.)

    The slinger is the winner when considering the cost of the nuke. It is entirely misleading to say that the slinger is the winner in terms of this comparison. This comparison in fact shows how similar the horseman and the slinger are in their ability to destroy defending armies efficiently using the attacker's farm space.

    It can get more complicated if you consider defenses that neglect sharp defense a lot more (an understandable strategy for defenders) or if you try to figure out what defenses are actually used by your enemies (which can be totally nonstrategic). Long story short, the spy report will tell you whether your slingers or horses will be more effective to send in first. (Sending in your best attack first will give you fewer losses.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Very good insight and thank you for your input! Yes, the sharp defense number in my example is definitely a typo - I had to put the wrong number into my excel sheet. I haven't noticed that as I was expecting it to be the lowest anyway, so didn't really put attention how big this difference is. My apologies.

      Regarding numbers of units used in my examples you might be right - for beginners (people learning the game) it would be better to build my example on numbers you proposed. However please mind that I did actually make the example like that in the previous part (look at the table and "Attack per Farm Space divided by the average defense") and I got the same results as you: 1.41 Slinger and 1.45 Horseman. So I would be basically repeating the same thing again. This is why I probably tweaked those numbers a bit.

      Was it misleading to say that Slingers in my example were winners? Honestly I don't think so. I did show the results so everyone can see that the difference between 1.51 and 1.52 is not huge so obviously Slingers in that particular scenario were not clear winners. By "winners" I meant that they will be the most effective force to be used (against that specific defense). The fact that they were only slightly better than Horsemen doesn't change that fact. The bottom line, I was commenting my example, not making any general conclusions.

      For all still confused people let me just repeat that my goal with this part of the guide was to show how to figure out (calculate) the attacks effectiveness. I didn't try to promote one unit over other, which I hope I managed to make clear enough. Therefore I would never say that Hoplites are useless - everything is situational. The reason why Hoplites are rarely used in attacks is that a lot (if not most) of the players in Grepolis don't really read guides or try to go deep into numbers/statistics and therefore they build as many Archers as other type of defensive units. 9/10 times an average Joe will have sharp defense really high, which makes Hoplites an ineffective power, but of course we cant take it as granted and underestimate everyone around.

      Again thank you for your comment. Will fix my "typos" to avoid any potential confusion.

      Delete
    2. PS Ive looked closely to the part talking about effectiveness and I remember now why I didn't use 500/500/500 defense for my example (it was actually written there). I wanted to show people that even though blunt defense has the lowest value, it doesn't mean that Horsemen will be the most effective force to be used. I didn't think at all about sharp def (Archers).

      However to avoid "being accused of being too harsh on a hoplite's sharp damage" I decided to change a bit the previous example and lowered amount of Archers, so they represent now the smallest group in terms of used FS. I hope it explains everything now :)

      Delete
    3. I should mention that I greatly appreciate your blog and think you've done a great service putting it all together. :)

      I understand more clearly now that you're not intending the example you're using as a representative example and not meaning your comment after it as a judgment on the strengths of units in general. It's just an example of how the situtation for the attacker changes depending on the defender. (And the same can be said vice-versa, of course...)

      I could say a lot more than this because I am keenly interested in these topics, just as you are. Maybe in another post. (Maybe a guest post, if you allow them?) Now that I understand the intent more clearly, I don't have a problem with the way you've presented it. May I only suggest that presenting an equal farm space example (500-500-500 defenders' units), above in the previous and first section of the article, might make the essay just a bit more clear (as an example of "A/FS/AD"). Clarity is one virtue of repetition!

      Delete
    4. I will look at it, maybe tomorrow after work and will add that example. Regarding the "guest posts" I dont really know anything about them to be honest but will read about it. I would be very happy to allow people to participate in building solid guides on this blog. If you would like to share your opinions or knowledge please do so and I will try to help you with that. Soon I will know more and will come back to you. Thanks

      Delete
  7. Hi GROM, thanks for the website, this is awesome!

    It doen't allow me to level down the temple to 0, any reason for that?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thank you, I try to make it as valuable source of information as possible.
    Regarding your Temple, I would say to leave it. I don't know why it would not allow you to demolish it to 0 but those 5 FS you can get are not such a big deal. I proposed in my guide to take temples down to 0 but honestly it is not necessary - its an extreme option. I personally would keep all my temples at least at lvl 10. That is 50 FS, I know but I always needed more and more FPs.

    You see, again its situational and depends on your particular situation. The guide is for people with 10 cities but also for those with 150 of them. People who have 100-150 cities can afford to not care and demolish everything down, those with 20 towns still need some basic FPs production. There are other factors to consider as well - how often you need to use FPs etc.

    Don't worry though about details like this. Grepolis is a funny game where sometimes one silly mistake of your enemy (or lack of skills) can make such a big difference that all our detailed calculations stop matter. Sometimes you might lose internet connection or make a day off from the game and it will cost you more than you saved by fanatically calculating all FS, points, resources for weeks. Use the knowledge from this page as a guide, implement it where and when you can but don't get crazy, its only a game ;)

    Have fun!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I still think rebuild speed and resource production is more important than maxing out your army. For example bireme city ends up with tons of silver, which could be used to fill caves and send spies. Excess stone from LS city can be sent to other cities or again traded for wood for example.

    In advanced stages of the game it matters more how you can get new city slots (city festivals do help a bunch) and how quick you are rebuilding your units. Maxed out mines provide very nice passive resource income.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I didnt say anywhere that speed of production is not important. If you actually read the guide you will see that barracks or harbor are always at the max level including research (academy). Regarding resources - this guide is all about "perfect" nukes, not cities. I dont say you should follow it to the letter, these are just templates, which can be adjusted to personal preferences. You might want to have most of your cities to be as practical as possible but dedicate some just for the strongest nukes. I dont say every city should be pushed to the extreme, like in this guide, so again, this is not a guide about "perfect" cities, it focus only on nukes.

      Delete
    2. I mean there's obviously no point to have lvl20+ barracks in, say, a LS or bireme city, but I do always max out ALL mines. With 20+ cities farming and raiding gets very tedious, so these maxed out mines help a bunch.

      In fact I don't even demand from farms anymore (even with premium captain).

      Delete
    3. I agree but thats your "style" and your situation. Some people might have only few cities and farm a lot - for them strongest nuke possible is a good way to go. For example it makes sense to build very strong nukes when you have only few cities and that one or two attacks must be deadly. Also when you have 20+ cities it might be a good idea to have few extreme nukes for the spearhead attacks (those which hit first). Nothing is set in stone, everything depends on your situation and tactics.

      The bottom line, as I said before, it is not a guide about planning all of your cities. It provides only examples on how to build an extremely strong nuke. You might want to have many of them, few or none, its up to you and your playstyle.

      Delete
  10. Great guide I think this is your best one yet, your site is by far the best source of grepo information that I have found on the internet. I reccomend it to all of the players in my alliance as I have learned alot from it. Any chance you will be adding any defense nukes to your guides at some point or making a guide for them, such as a pegaz nuke or a mixed defense city of cerbs and archers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for nice comments. Re "defense nuke" there is no such a thing, for the simple reason that you can stack defensive units and it doesnt matter how big army you have in a single city as long as the total number (from all cities) is high enough. However, when I specialised my cities for defense purposes I did produce only land defensive units there or Biremes. I could write a guide about defending or just add some info about defending cities, but atm you can find some examples in my guide about City Specialisation (please have a look there).
      If you have any more requests or are interested in some specific subject please feel free to tell me.

      Delete
  11. if u have 40+ city.if i will make sword/archer nuke cities.is it will be efficient?
    thanks in advance.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Please check my guide about City Specialisation for more information about defensive cities. Basically building only land defensive units (Swordsmen, Archers, Hoplites) cities and only Biremes cities is the most efficient way.

      Delete
  12. dude, this website is amazing. how long did it take you to write all this?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks. I dont know really how long. I was putting articles here since the end of 2010, then re-writting them over and over again and adding new.

      Delete
  13. Congratulations for this great site

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hello GROM, congrats for the nice website!
    I've discovered it a few days ago and I'm still amazed by the quality of the insights you've put in it.

    I have a question for you, though, about the build of a manticore nuke:

    you put in your example a lvl 30 barraks in order to speed up the production, but it seems pointless to me to have such high level barraks because time is not the limit for the manticore production, but DF points you gain each day are.

    You can assume to build 1 manticore per day, so no need to raise the barraks to the roof; keeping it at low level is fine although you don't reach the level since your DF production is faster than your manticore production (highly difficult).

    What do you think?

    Even if you don't end up with enough free space tu add another manticore to the nest (but you did :D) you can always rise up the silver mine to earn more silver to fill up the cavern, or the marketplace in order to move resources to other cities (when you have the nuke ready).

    PS. Sorry for my English, this is not my first language :) I hope my points are understandable to you
    Cheers!

    Ale

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Ale,
      You are right and thank you for pointing that out - you spot it perfectly. I always try to think about every aspect of the game but since I write those guides alone Im prone to make mistakes like this. Definitely you dont need barracks at max level. I will amend the info soon and see which level would be optimal.
      Thanks to people like you, my guides can be better and serve other players.

      Kind regards

      Delete
    2. I'm glad to be helpful! :)

      Here another one for you: you put Phalanx as a mandatory research for the manticore/harpy nukes cities, but as the grepolis wiki said and the grepolis boards pointed out, you cannot apply phalanx/battering ram to mythical units.

      you can find it here:

      http://wiki.en.grepolis.com/wiki/Mythical_Units

      excerpt from the page:

      In relation to other units

      All mythical units are not considered to be like other units when calculating certain things, in these situations mythical units are not treated as regular units:

      When sending out a C-Ship, a hydra can not be used as the battle ship, nor other mythical units as land units

      When accounting for Phalanx/Battering Ram research



      Mythical Units are applied similarly to other units when:

      Trainer/conscription or shipwright/mathematics are researched
      when accounting for the wall, all myth units but hydra are accounted in on all land (not flying/naval) myth units, they can die on transport boats


      So, the phalanx research mitigate (partially) the disavantage in dmg/fs between regular nukes and mythical ones.

      The same goes for the defensive units: no phalanx bonus allowed for cerberus, medusa and pegasus.


      In the french grepolis boards and in the Spanish one, the mods have summarized all researches and magical effetcs that affects mithical creatures.

      Hope this helps!
      Keep up the good work! ;)

      PS. Again, sorry for my English :)

      Delete
    3. Hi again!
      I have never seen this page and the info it provides. I guess the best way to check if the phalanx works for mythical creatures is to put numbers into the simulator. Unfortunately atm I dont play any world so cant check it myself. However since its Grepo Wiki, then it should be valid information. Again I will see what I need to amend in my guides.

      The only problem is that it says: "When sending out a C-Ship, a hydra can not be used as the battle ship, nor other mythical units as land units" and few lines below "because speed does not particularly matter when escorting C-Ships, this makes a great C-Ship escort." So as far as I understand these two lines contradict each other...

      I thought that you can include myth units with your colony ship (the god will be converted after the siege) but cannot support the siege with myth units, even of the same "new" god. That means, if you decide you'd send some pegasus to your siege, because you had one with your colony ship, you'll be surprised to see all flying horses coming back home.

      If you can experiment with your friends and play around with sieging each other, you will get the answers and I will be happy to hear back from you. If you can definitely confirm these 2 things I will be very pleased (confirm after testing it in the game).

      Thank you for all your input, I appreciate that and dont worry about English - its good. As I said many times before, its a foreign language for me as well. The most important is that you try to communicate with me and we manage to do that :)

      Thanks again!

      Delete
    4. I have seen a Cerberus in a siege before. It was the enemies, and we were trying to break it. there were 8 Cerberus inside on the spy report.

      Delete
  15. I think the wiki refers to that:
    http://wiki.en.grepolis.com/wiki/Colonizing

    How To Colonize: Step By Step

    [...]
    You will need to select what units will accompany your CS. You MUST send along both land and naval units as escorts to the new city site. These are commonly referred to as escort units. Land units will require transport ships, however, the transport ships do not count towards your naval unit requirements.
    [...]

    So, the Hydra don't qualify as a battleship to escort the C-Ship and send out the C-attack :)
    You always need at least 1 lightship/bireme/trireme with th C-Ship, even if you menage to send 100 Hydras with it :P

    ReplyDelete
  16. of course the same apply even to conquering:

    http://wiki.en.grepolis.com/wiki/Conquest

    Prerequisites

    Before you are actually going to conquer anything, you need the following things:

    Conquest researched
    A Colony ship and all it entails
    At least one land unit
    At least one transport boat(regular or fast)
    At least one Bireme, Trireme, or Light Ship
    Conquer Research
    Sufficient culture points to have another city

    without these you can not expect to conquer a city, and it is suggested that you have an excess of resources beyond the bare necessities.


    Again, Hydra is not allowed to replace regular battleship in order to fullfil the requirements :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well ok, so this goes as far as requirements for a conquest, however Hydras (and other mythical units) will still take a part in all battles (when attacking and defending a siege). You cant send only mythical units with c-ship but it doesnt mean they are useless - they still provide a lot of firepower.

      I will have some free time today and will amend my guide regarding barracks level and will check if phalanx affect mythical units. If so, will amend my guide accordingly as well.

      thanks mate

      Delete
    2. I took me a while to correct it but finally did it. I reduced size of barracks to lvl 5 (from 30) for myth units. Lvl 5 is necessary for the academy. Also academy level was reduced to 22 for "Plow" tech, because Phalanx will not affect the strength of myth units in regular worlds.

      Thanks again Alesad for pointing that out.

      Delete
  17. Knight of Honor5 August 2012 at 09:54

    I could never understand people who don't build resource makers to level 40.Don you think Market is good for nothing?You can trade between your cities and sometimes put suggestions with ratio 0.99 and you'll soon sell them.

    This way you'll win much time.

    P.S.Not to say anything about silver,you can max you caves with silver.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As it was answered few times before this is guide about "perfect nukes" and by definition most city's buildings are taken down to minimum. Its about big NUKES not functional cities...

      Delete
  18. Knight of Honor5 August 2012 at 16:29

    And do you behave so?

    I prefer to have 2450 men army in a month than 2750 in 2.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You still dont understand what Im saying. Please make an effort and read carefully before posting again. For example read comments from 25th June and 7th of July.
      This guide shows how to build a nuke, it does NOT talk about "perfect" cities nor about how you should build all of them. It does NOT consider any particular tactics or any general strategy for the game. It focus ONLY on pure nukes.

      Read my other guides to know what I think about production camps. Go to the guides about Resources War, Farming and even City specialisation... but please dont argue about something that I dont even talk about.

      Delete
  19. Damn, I missed that.

    ReplyDelete
  20. What a site, and dedication to do this without pay, thank you and congratz

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. PS not totally for free. When you click an advert banner I get like few pens ;) Sometimes its enough for 2-3 pints in a pub per month! ;)

      Delete
  21. Your a great person GROM you have no idea how many peopple you have helped

    ReplyDelete
  22. is it okay to bring demolish academy to get more free pop after I get necessary researcher (e.g. Ram)?

    do the researches work if I demolish the academy to 27 and I have Ram researcheed?

    if it's ok to demolish acad. not loosing the researches, how low can I drop it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Research will not be disactivated if you demolish Academy. I dont know how low you can go to be honest but my guess would be that its possible to go down even to lvl 1.
      Whenever you demolish academy be sure that you will not need them again as they are quite expensive.

      Delete
    2. You can go down to lvl 22 which is the dependency for building a CS. Otherwise yeah you can go down to lvl 1. But as you sid, they are expensive, so if the situation chance and you want to reset a tech and research some other instead you will be crying :)

      Delete
  23. if only there are more people like, the world would be a much better place. awesome site, i'm a fan!

    ReplyDelete
  24. What about Erinys and cerberus ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cerberus is mostly defense

      Delete
    2. Erinys are weaker than slinger and therefore I didnt bother to put them on the list. I would never build a nuke of them if I can get a stronger nuke from cheap slingers.

      Cerberi, as correctly noted, are defensive units. There is no such a thing as defensive nuke. You can stack defensive units from many cities and so the size of a so called defensive nuke would be indefinite. How would you compare them?
      When we speak about nukes we focus on offensive forces which can be sent only from 1 city and cannot be merged together.

      Delete
  25. Super awesome article and excellent analysis.

    I was actually looking for the logic behind Grepolis simulator when I stubmled upon it.

    By any chance do you know the math behind the scenes.

    For example:

    Consider the scenario when 100 hoplites attack 100 swordsmen

    Hoplite sharp attack = 16*100 = 1600
    Hoplite blunt defense = 18*100 = 1800

    Swordsmen blunt attack = 5*100 = 500
    Sowrdsmen sharp defense = 8*100 = 800

    Result:
    44 hoplites die
    100 swordsmen die

    Due to the war till annihilation concept in Grepolis, it is clear that all swordsmen will die and some hoplites will survive.
    But how does grepolis arrive at the number 44.
    If you can provide the logic it will be really helpful.

    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are asking about the battle formula used in the game and I think nobody knows it except Grepolis game developers.

      Please check my comment on the Units calculator page (the basic one) posted on 21 December 2012 21:26.

      One small comment about your numbers - I dont think Hoplites blunt defense and Swordsmen blunt attack are taken into calculation when Hoplites are the attacking side. I think that the formula takes into account only hoplites sharp attack and swordsmen sharp defense in this scenario.

      Delete
  26. nice one on putting Phears on here, i can tell you he got some micky taking on the external forum because of it especially since he was attacking a mod

    ReplyDelete
  27. hmm... never thought about resource cost in combat... thanks! :)

    ReplyDelete
  28. Great guides here GROM, awesome work. With a lot of reading here and logical reasoning in game i'm doing pretty well, even though i'm playing for the first time :)
    But still got a question on the nukes, why don't you add catapults here? Very often adding them to my attack gives me much better results (less deaths on my own forces). So isn't a attack more effective or powerful with some catapults added to them? Total attack value might be lower, but it deals more damage for lower cost.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nice to hear that. Its great that my guides can let first timers to perform so well.

      Catapults are poor attackers, have very low attack per Farm Space (100/15 = 6.6 Attack per FS). This is as much as swordsmen have... so you need to build enough troops to escort those catapults.

      Catapults alone, or when attacking enemy city with no walls are useless. The effect you are talking about is probably the result of destroying walls and not some sort of "boost" that catapults add.

      However the whole purpose of catapults is to weaken the wall, to reduce defensive bonus as much as necessary. Please read my guide about catapults and city walls for more details on this subject.
      You want to lower walls level so your next offensive waves can have bigger impact on defensive units (kill more of them).

      When the walls level is high, destroying them reduces strength of defense much more than just simply sending nuke after nuke and killing some defensive units in this process. Walls can increase strength of defensive units by 140%!
      Please check my guide about city walls and catapults:
      http://grepolis-pro.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/city-walls-and-catapults.html

      In my experience 20-30 catapults its all you need. Don't go crazy building 100 of them. With 20-30 you should see good results but only if enemy has walls. I think ~50 catapults is the maximum number in terms of effectiveness. Add 1000+ slingers and you are good to go.

      The simulator works great for trial and error testing method. Use it often to compare what sort of results you get in each scenario.

      I hope it helps.

      Delete
    2. Thx for the quick response :)

      I was indeed talking about the effect of destroying the walls. Right now i'm still in the fase where i want to knock out the enemy in one or two attacks, so i need a first wave with some catapults and then the nuke.

      The guide about city walls is nice, something basic to keep in mind, also when building my own cities.

      It helps ;)

      Delete
  29. thanks for the guides they were great if the huns in the first report were from Delta do you know if greco1313 and sparkyste still play i used to play on delta

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, I have no idea what is happening in Delta right now but yes, the Huns used to be my allies but never really played with them. I only know greco and sparkyste from shared forum and BP/points board.

      Delete
    2. can flying units get status of enemy's troops.. even if they die there?
      Like can i send a harpy to get info on enemy's troops and die itself in the process?

      Delete
    3. Hi, I apologize for a late reply but I was away for 3 weeks and had limited access to the internet.

      It used to be possible but now I think it is not. The best way to check is to send a Harpy ;)

      Delete
  30. what about pults mate?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have answered that question on 27 February 2013 - so scroll up a few comments.

      "Pults" can be added when attacking units behind walls - build less units and add them.

      For me a "nuke" is an attack made of only 1 type of units and so the above guide does not cover catapults.

      Delete
  31. Just wondering why you haven't done a Medusa nuke guide since you say in basic guide it is rank 1st for myth units.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, a good question.
      When I analysed mythical units in my previous guides I did not take into account transport ships (their costs in population and resources). For example my guide about mythical units at the moment compare all units as if they were to be sent on the same island (not by ships). Medusa is indeed a great unit for attacking or defending but if we want to get the highest sharp attack possible we have to use Manticores.

      Delete
    2. Yep I agree mate nothing beets manti's for sharp attack however I think it would be useful if you did do one for Medusa too since they are stronger in attack and defence than hoplites including transports and light ship support making it a very useful nuke imo.

      Thank you for the great site, keep up the good work. I'll click a few adverts whenever I come on so you can buy a pint from me :p

      Delete
  32. Hi GROM:) you have great guides but i was just wondering if i have a wood+ stone- island, would it be best to make a horseman nuke or a different nuke (land units not navy) and if i do should i use transport ships or fast transport ships.
    thank you

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Parker,
      you can build anything on this island as long as you can deliver necessary resources from other cities. Also it is important to check what located on that island Farming Villages are trading. Sometimes you can have wood+ but most of the FVs are buying wood and selling something else.
      Horseman actually needs more silver than wood, but again it all depends on those 2 things I have mentioned above.

      Delete
  33. hey, I was hoping you could answer a question of mine. I have been doing the math on the population limits of a city with the highest farm+plow+thermal baths and are you sure you can have 1790 slingers, 112 FTS and 50 LS? or any other of your nukes because i think if you had all of your levels of buildings you said with the nuke and it might be too many population. also wouldn't it be smarter to use catapults to bring down city walls? because that would make even more population haha.
    thank you GROM:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The maximum population in a city is 3500 (except heroic world where it is more). That includes Thermal baths and plow. Now the army (1790 slingers, 112 FTS and 50 LS) takes 2850 FS (Farm Spaces). Buildings will take 608 if you keep Walls and Temple at level 0. Altogether it is 3458 FS (still 42 to do whatever you like).

      Now, you can increase level of any building if you wish to and in consequence reduce the size of your nuke - it is all up to you.
      I only showed how to do that but how far you go is your own choice or need.

      Lastly people should stop asking me about catapults...
      For me a "nuke" is an attack made of only 1 type of units and so the above guide does not cover catapults, which does not mean I have something against them, just the opposite.

      Catapults should be added when you attack units hiding behind walls - build less units and add them if you want to but it will not be a nuke per definition. In my opinion it is best to first grind walls down and then start sending nukes.

      Delete
    2. okay thank you sir.

      Delete
  34. Hey,
    Which nuke is your favorite, or the one you most prefer to use? (land unit nukes)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I do not play any more but when I was, my most often used nuke was a slingers nuke for practical reasons:
      - you cant (re)build quickly a mythical nuke;
      - slingers are very cheap and quick to build, and you do not need wait for favor points to make them.
      Somehow it was just easier to make slingers than horsemen. Maybe resources were easily available, silver was going to caves or for LS.

      I have never built a hoplites nuke but once I had a small Medusa nuke. Problem with Medusa though is that most of the time I had no FPs for them, as I was boosting my regular troops production with spells constantly.

      Delete
    2. thanks,
      i use the slinger nuke too and its an easy build which is why I use it. I always wondered which is better just because Slingers are cheap but swords are a good defense against them and horseman are lower attack and more expensive but the defenses for blunt is weak on most units. but i think the slings are the best. thank you

      Delete
  35. umm i love it and have read it a lot of times for the last years.but i never commented..

    what i need to know is the bireme nukes one

    Gouenji36

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. At some point why not, but at the moment I have to finish other projects on this website.
      Thanks for this positive support.

      Delete
  36. GROM, i really appreciate this guide, i am playing for my first time and this is a big help to me. You mention that people have preferences as to which nuke they use, i was prepping my city to use a horseman nuke because i prefered the effeciency over the slinger nuke. But after comparing that to the harpies seem so much better-coupled with the fact of no boats needed. They both have the same counters but the harpies just seem better, and in theory if i didnt make a full nuke of harpies, that would still be stronger than a horseman nuke. But what do you think? Is it just a matter of favor points vs. actual resources? i get 13 FPs per hour.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If you can afford it (have time and resources) then by all means go for it. If you are not at war, this is the best time to use your FPs for mythical units. If you do not manage to build a whole nuke of Harpies, then you can always mix them with Horsemen. However be aware – Harpies are defenseless. You have to hide them, send away when you are go offline etc. They are vulnerable like Light Ships when attacked.

      Regarding efficiency it is the matter of calculating resources lost by you vs resources lost by your opponent. Sometimes it is more efficient to send Slingers, other times Horsemen and sometimes even Hoplites. Little distance defense (not many swordsmen)– send Slingers. Little blunt defense (very few hoplites/chariots)– send Horsemen. Little sharp defense (for example a Horsemen nuke city) – send Hoplites.

      Good luck

      Delete
    2. thanks for quick answer GROM, i will help you out with your beer fund after i get paid ;)!

      Delete
    3. Hehe nice :)
      Actually I have just invested £160 ($240) into my new grepo-project.

      Soon you should be able to see new calculators, old ones changed to be quicker and nicer looking and after that I might start preparing them for smartphones.
      That expense was mostly covered from my all time income from this page (people clicking on ads) - you see I do not drink that much beer ;) but because earnings are so little I call it "beer money".

      Delete
  37. I have a question,if some player decides to take over all of my cities,and I decide to found one far away from any problems,which island should I choose? I mean,what type should be my newly founded city?Off,deff,conquer or?
    Also,does my city slots remain,do I need to gather culture points all over again?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. City slots stay as well as CPs.
      I answered to your question in my guide about city specialisation but I can quickly tell you now that if you have only 1 city then you need to make it a conquest city. How otherwise will you start conquering again? Your 2nd should be offensive. If there are no problems, you will become the biggest one.

      Delete
  38. Thanks mate this really helped, now I'm getting up 10k BP per day! Just again, thanks mate for telling me the set-up for the city and how many to recruit really helped thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Hey I checked the simulator and your calculations about LS and BIR's was off but everything was very useful thank you GROM.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks. I do not know to which part you are referring to but regarding LS and BMs mind that a lot depends on technology (B. ram +10%), spell boosts (F. Wind +10%) and also captain availability (+20%).

      For example when I say that 50 LS should be ok vs 200 BMs it will not always be the case and it is only a rough estimate. 50 LS with all the boosts is 50*1.4 = 70 LS. If a defender does not have any boosts it is 70 vs 200, if he has it is 70 vs 280. There are many possibilities here.

      Delete
  40. I have discovered that one usually worthless research, Meteorology, is actually worth researching in a specialized myth nuke city. With regular troops, ya its is worthless because they use transports, but flying myth units, harpies, manticores and pegasus, don't have to and can benefit from the 10% speed boost when flying.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Meteorology will indeed increase the speed of all barrack produced troops, flying myths included, however the wording should be better as now it is misleading ("Your Infantry move 10% faster"). It is useful only in flying nuke cities though.

      Delete
  41. Great job on all of your guides they are very useful but I have one question. If you have a LS nuke city should you still make the 50 LS in slinger, hoplite, and horsemen nuke cities?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Of course! You cant send LS nuke with transport ships and they need escort. LS escort can be built only in the same city where land units.

      Delete
  42. Great guide, my freaking brain hurts trying to put it all in perspective. Will definitely need to read over a few more times.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Great Guide! Been looking like a guide like this for ages...I know have a idea of how many of each units I need to make I'm really happy! :)

    Great Site as well will definatley be using it in the future!

    ReplyDelete
  44. So interesting, Usefull...

    Almost every day i am looking at this page.

    ReplyDelete