How to have a well proportioned army

[acer5200]

Pikes will out number Swords certainly, but never will either of these troop allotments be close to or greater than Warriors or Archers.

Except in a CD where swords are being used a scoutshield of course.

[sjaak]

No wall defenses mentioned, and i wouldnt have these proportions.

To begin with, early server, you want more warriors than arch (first couple of weeks), then you want to mass build archers (for PvP and HCs), and then you will probably end up with more warriors than archers, depending on how many drafts you get a day.

In a defense, its probably not a good idea to leave cav there while offline, as they are quickly killed and generally cause very little damage to attackers. Also phracts, as they are so expensive, to have them killing layers while being slaughtered by archers, is not cost effective.

Also only 1k ballis, and 500 trans? Farming? Sure theres less npcs on age2, unless you build your own, get lucky that they arent cleared, and are prepared to lose them, but you should still have at least 5 5s or 4s in a reasonable distance (of 2 cities). Also multi hits, for gems, i would advise anyone to work towards 5k as a min, so you can send 10 waves at once. Need more trans, to farm with, to transport res between your cities, and to provide resources to alliance members who may need some.


And no pults? If you are using traps, and are offline, they can spam you and simply cav smack. Just 1 pult will prevent that, and 1 pult isnt a huge cost.



Would also say more workers, for layering purposes.

Mat this is better then the guy's guide +Rep

[kaziglubey]

terrible proportions... u start getting some of those people with millions of scout sb'ing you. your arch are gonna be toast... look in forums as others have posted great ratios to have and for beginners is great to shoot for

[Oss Spy]

You can't make a guide about this in a single post with one section...

You haven't mentioned mechs, layers, rainbows, scout bombs and defenses for each...

This is Age II (I only play Age I), but the combat mechanics are the same...you either have to go in depth or don't go in at all.

[goemong]

Jasc999, the following is just my opinion, which is no holier than yours. With this disclaimer clearly stated, I actually do have one disagreement.

I disagree with your premise, implied in your title, that there is a "well proportioned army." I don't know if you used the word "proportion" casually or you actually believe that there is an optimum ratio among various combat units under any or most circumstances.

I think the optimum ratio among units would vary and depend on several factors, including food production. For example, if a player is at a stage where s/he can produce only 200-300K food, perhaps the most cost-effective defense army may consist almost entirely of archers, together with a small number of melee units (i.e.,"layers" pikes/swords/warriors/workers). To this, you add some transporters/ballistas for farming, the number of which depends on your actual need for farming, as opposed to ego factor (look-how-many-balls-I've-got).

The above configuration (archers + thin layers of melee units), in the presence of trap/abatis/def treb (so-called "5K defense"), is by no means a strong defense. But when the resources are limited, in my opinion, it probably offers the best ROI (return-on-investment) in terms of its defensive capability per replacement cost.

As your city develops and more resources become available, most players start building archer towers (ATs). ATs are expensive in terms of resources consumed and time required for (re-)building. But once complete, especially in so-called compact defense, they are essential components of a formidable defense.

The archer-melee ratio, too, may need to change as the city develops. As some ppl have pointed out earlier, the defense consisting of archers plus thin layers of melees would become vulnerable to horse or mech attack, once the trap/abatis/def treb were cleared. Your defense would need to address this problem, by possibly changing archer-melee ratio and/or adding some other more expensive units (But in this thread, I stop here and am not going to discuss how to defend your city against horse/mech attack).

Finally, I appreciate your starting this thread and hope that you didn't get too disappointed by some of the negative comments.

[sleekit]

Good on you for trying to start a thread
But there is no perfect combination - it depends on so many factors

early in the game I would usualy aim for something like 3 times wars to archers 1/4 pikes and sword to archers and same scouts

Balistas and transporters most important to get farming asap

early on have AT on walls later on only really bother with them in CD cities - otherwise keep the trap abit number up

pults and rams are amazing when you know what to do with them

The best troop combo really depends on how good your reds are and what they are sending at you

too many people around just now just attack with full archer rainbows and dont even bother to check how lame their attacks are - for that get the horses out and keep replacing your layers

But if you are lucky enough to get a GOOD red then you have the fun of moving troops in and out and working the gates - but they are few and far between at the moment - just now it seems a big battle involves a wry smile and clicking ignore on them pesky flashing reports as you watch their troops splat

[Stal]

i have to say ... i am glad that you started this thread ... not because you "gave it a good try" or whatever else but because you can now learn from this ... it is evident to me perhaps you are in a smaller newer alliance on age2 with not as many big hitters for guidance? just a guess ... I won't go over what people have already said here because many know more than I. However i will suggest you find some good players on your server and just ask them if they could help you (if you're truly interested in learning and getting better). I would ask though to plz close your gates if this is all you have for troops the idea of taking down as many of their troops as possible doesn't work if you lose all of yours. So close your gates until you can defend against a couple dumby arch rainbows and 1 or 2 100k waves of scouts and you should be able to continue building up to the numbers and strategies talked about earlier.