Compact Defence

[Darkbrady]

Let's assume you're under seige. The enemy plans on sendin' 100k archers or so to clean layers, followed by a heavy 'phract attack.

To all the believers of the "If it's not a million archers, it's not worth it" philosophy who think that the simple solution is an abati, a 1/1/1/1/1 layer and 700k archers, I've been workin' on smaller numbers.
See, I'm a sword lover. I much prefer my disposable layers.
I've also got little time to feed 10m+ upkeeps on 2m archers.
I'm also far beyond sick of this t/a/d spam; I don't like thinkin' that as soon as they break down my t/a/d that I'm dead. I can't always be online.

So I've done a few tests on close quarters fightin' to try and create a solid, cheap, close range defence that is actually effective.

Well, 700k archers would be in serious danger from the first attack.
Advanced mechanics tells us that archer cleaner waves are best utilised before removin' the t/a/d, because it keeps the archers out of AT/defensive archer range and allows the cleaners to freely shoot apart layers, while also triggerin' your t/a/d in the process.
This will allow your follow up 'phractsmack to walk up and tear your archer army to shreds.

What if you had...less than 400k troops?
And let's say only about 130k of them were archers?
And there were no t/a/d in sight?
Hell, only 7k ATs, too?
And jus' for good measure; let's put in logs!!
That works out at about...3m upkeep. Not too shabby.

The quick, rash and ignorant will run to scream "omgfail", firmly believin' that the 'phracts will decimate that kind of low number defence.
The rational and experienced will either know what's comin', have a good idea or in the very least be curious.

Let's look at the first attack. Layered archers, to clean.


Pretty tragic effects. The ATs get knocked down a bit, but a decent number get repaired. The ponies get some damage from the layers, but nothin' notable.
Before they get any real damage off, the logs and layers trample them. The defence is almost untouched.
Few moe attacks like that will have reduced the AT numbers, maybe even started to hit the archers, but at far too high an expense. Scout bombs hurt; send 1m scouts to kill 100k archers. How do you feel about sendin' 1m archers to kill my 100k archers?
Not too fun, really.

So, the second attack; the 'phractsmack.


Severe damage to the layers...well, what did you expect from a 99k HB wave?
But what's the damage proportionally?
90k warriors and 18k pikes is a five minute job. 5k phracts and 20k ponies against....80k phracts and 20k ponies? I think I came out better off, there.
Archers? Not even touched.
The logs didn't help here, ignorin' the HBs so pilin' up ATs would have led to more use, but they helped nomnom the first wave...their effectiveness is arguable at this stage.

I'm sayin' here that 130k archers killed 80k ponies w/o bein' touched.
For anyone who's ready to jump and scream and say "400k archers can kill 125k phracts w/o all those layers" jus' think about the first part of this post. Thin layered archers can be easily torn down once the layers are wiped off the map, and that's not even lookin' at the total upkeep involved.

Consider that for any and all damage done in these attacks, it's relative to the damage dealt by the attacker and works out at far less. Also consider that damage is bein' done, which does a lot to stem the honour gain. All I have to do is send out some scoutbombs or warriorbombs to hit him while he attacks and I can completely negate the honour gains I'm pullin' in.

Both layered waves and spearhead waves do some damage, but ultimately not enough to fully break. They'd need several more similar attacks to break through that defence. We're talkin' 300k+ archers and 300k+ 'phracts to take out a defence that consists of 130k archers here...jus' think about that.

[Neokarasu]

Very nice. I love the fact that you took advantage of the lack of 5k's to use your melee effectively in both scenarios either as Archer killers or just meatshield.

I'm also of the same thinking process about the Swords. They're so nice to have and their speed is just right that they're not the first to get fired on while being high enough to get there in time.

Again, <3 this report!

Just a quick question though: why Logs over more ATs?

[PU239]

I think it was used to kill the layers, so that on later rounds archers and ATs are focused on the archers, I think ^_^

[Neokarasu]

Ok, I guess part of the reason I'm confused is I don't know their mechanic exactly.

So they have 1300 range and 500 attack. That means they don't insta-kill like Traps.
They don't have life/defense either so that means they're not a valid targets for attacks (?)
But since some of them die and they can't be attacked (?), that means they kill themselves when attacking (?).

So ya, basically a whole bunch of (?) regarding Logs in general. The excerpt from your guide is also very very brief and doesn't really explain the mechanic.

[imakeucry]

so would be the best food eficient defence? medium layers and 175k sword? so that would be a defence for a farmign city...?

[PU239]

aw.... major head ache, look that was just an assumption as to why brady did that, traps and abatis have no lives like rolling logs, but when an infantry comes to their range to would have to cross it first, then can either die or move forward then face rolling logs, then die or either by some kryptonic miracle survive it ^_^ anyway when all traps and rolling logs are killed the rest can move freely, then they have to face the walls and ATs

I'm not really a fan of this stuff, I don't really know much about it ^_^ but I'm very happy everytime I win ^_^

[Darkbrady]

Logs are use-up trigger defences like DTs.
They don't autokill and work with such a random spread like traps/abati though; they specifically target the high value unit and "attack" them w/ a damage value (usin' themselves up in the process) but cannot be targetted either.

I was usin' the logs purely to test this out while I do this test. Considerin' it's close quarters it's the perfect time for logs to be useful; they'll completely trample infantry units: they have 500 attack apiece, which is an attack that rivals catapults; they seriously hurt units badly.
The reason that they're under-used is because in a 5k range battle they serve almost no purpose by the time units get in range, especially since ATs will be firin' at over 2k+ distance with bonuses. This battle keeps the ranged units hittin' full power, but the logs are also in perfect range.

The issue, however, is that they don't hurt HBs..but they do serious damage to infantry units, actually far more than ATs possibly can, and won't jus' sit and target a single b'lister; they target the high value unit.

In this type of situation the logs become useful. I'm jus' weighin' out the uses against the HB units that are completely unaffected by them.
Technically the battle against the archers would be far more damagin' to only use logs, but the ATs act as a layer for the archer horde, so a 50/50 cut seemed to be best, which would also leave ATs over for HB attacks afterwards.

[Neokarasu]

Gotcha.

I'm slightly confused by the 2nd report.

So both of your Horses pretty much died on round 1 and round 2, but how did all of your Warriors die?
Warriors are pretty much the slowest unit there and value-wise, they're even lower than your Swords. So why did the attacking HBs target your Warriors before your Swords? Or if they died before round3, how did the Warriors pass by your Swords in terms of getting in combat first?

[Darkbrady]

Y'know, we were lookin' at that.

Short answer is that we don't know yet.

[Thosewhoareaboutto]

lol first thing I said when he showed me was; "very nice...waaait, the warriors died?"
If we can figure out why might make this defense even more valuable. Wouldn't be any problem to add a few 100k(or million ) more warriors to the spread.

The real interesting thing is some of the pikes died but all of the warriors died. This says to me either they switched targets to the warriors when they came in range or the pikes were hit after the warriors.