If our previous tutorials gave the impression that Ikariam is to be played exclusively Simkariam style you have been mistaken. Ikariam is a fist-rate war game. While in some browser games battles are like two rams knocking their heads together with the biggest ram always winning, Ikariam battles are more akin to dancing. Armies move back and force, travelling for hours and sometimes for days, clashing, retreating, feigning attacks, retreating again. There is asymmetric warfare, hit-an-run tactics, occupations, hidden armies and fleets, blockades and rebellions. I will start this tutorial from the beginning.
Basics
Ikariam is war game, but here wars are not as savage as in some other browser games. Cities can be pillaged or occupied, but they cannot be taken over permanently and destroyed, like for example in Evony, where upon logging in a player usually counts his cities to see if any has gone missing in the night. Ikariam war is so gentlemanly that when your city is occupied you still receive tax income from it, and the citizens are still producing resources as if nothing had happened. The occupier pays double upkeep for his troops, and he cannot remove even a single keg of wine from the city. There are few disadvantages to being occupied, like not being able to ship goods on the same island, launch attacks from the occupied city and troop recruitment costs are doubled. The occupied player can recruit troops and rebel.
There are even advantages to being occupied by a large player in that nobody is going to pillage the city. In Evony if your city is occupied it now belongs to the occupier. He may chose to keep it for himself, give it to somebody or turn it into an NPC town, by abandoning it. Having your port blockaded for a long time is far worse as you cannot ship the resources in or out. The city could ran out of wine, or if it is a wine producing city you would not be able to send wine from that city to the rest of your kingdom. Fortunately, small players there can smuggle a modest amount of resources through the port blockade. Battles in Ikariam last 15 minutes per round. It is possible to order retreat. The troops will fight for one additional round and then retreat in the case of the attacker, or scatter in the case of the defender. In some version of the game the defender can select which units to retreat, and chose to where they should go. In other versions the defending troops would just scatter for 4 hours. In Ikariam there is such a thing as morale of troops. After each round of battle troops lose 10% of morale because they are getting exhausted from fighting. Additional moral percentage is lost if they are losing, i.e. taking more damage, or more losses than the opponent, and for several other reasons. It is not uncommon for the attacker to flee because they could not breach the wall in 4 rounds. There are several military units in Ikariam. All of them have their strengths and weaknesses. Not all of those units can be built early in the game though. It costs wood, sulphur and gold to recruit them, and there is an hourly pay, known as the “upkeep”. The first unit that becomes available is a spearman. While it is not the most powerful unit, it is the cheapest – costing 1 gold coin an hour. Going purely by upkeep costs they compare favourably to swordsmen that cost 4 gold per hour. All being equal 40 spearmen will defeat 10 swordsmen. Both of these armies cost 40 gold per hour to upkeep. Many large players retain many spearmen in their armies. Slinger, is the second unit to become available. Costing 2 gold per hour it is the second cheapest, but it costs least less wood to build than a spearman.. |
1) Very Small vs Very Small
If you are among the first to start on a new server as soon as it opened, all your opponents will be similar to you in size and strength. Many will be inexperienced and all will be very small. If you have read our Beginner’s Guide to Ikariam you will remember the advice not to waste resources on anything military-related. Warfare on a new server is savage, chaotic and very frequent. It is also pointless and usually unprofitable. Alliances are shifting too, and there is much treachery. While it appears to be a real wild-west, fear not! You can easily defend your resources by constantly upgrading your warehouses. You should have four of them in each town. Your neighbours are attacking you because they are hungry for resources, not because they hate you. This early in the game it is best to rely purely on warehouse protection, have zero military score and build walls just to level 2 or 3. Let them attack all they want. If they cannot loot anything you lose nothing and they waste gold and time, and the use of their cargo ships. You will soon notice that the frequency of the attacks drops. Most pillagers will not attack for a third time if their two first attacks had been fruitless. Resist the temptation to build military of any sort and invest all your gold into buying more cargo vessels and into getting more researches done. If you follow this strategy consistently, you will soon become the biggest player for miles around. Now, if you want some action, build one low-level barrack and recruit a few slingers and perhaps some rams. Put a few rams and one slinger in all your towns. Each ram and each surviving section of the wall will take out one attacker. A slinger will keep the battle going as long as there are still intact sections of the wall left. Without a slinger the battle will be over as soon as a first section of the wall is breached – usually in the 1st round. When the wall is destroyed completely your rams should retreat to safety. Thus not only will your attacker get nothing, they will also suffer heavy casualties. |
2) Very Small vs Large
Obviously if you are a tiny newbie player being attacked by a raging behemoth the best part of valor is discretion. Learn to dodge. Build 4 warehouses, so he never pillages anything. Build a LV 16+ wall and keep 1 spearman in all cities and 1 warship. This will cause the attacker to waste time. If your attacker is particularly persistent, consider building a wall to level 20. A level 20 will destroy any enemy frontline unit per surviving wall section, even steam giants. If your attacker is losing troops to loot just a couple planks of wood, then you are hurting him. But can you actually take initiative and go on the offensive against him? Yes, you can! Build 3-10 ram ships and attack his ports at random – starting with cities that are far away from you. Capture a port on an island next to his. Apologise to the owner, say you came in peace and only want to surprise somebody. From that captured harbor start hitting his ports. The conventional wisdom of Ikariam is to keep 1 ship in each port, while keeping the rest of your navy in one location. Chances are you will hit his 1 ship with 10 of yours – leading to your victory. Retreat from there leaving 1 ship behind, and occupy another neutral port on another island next to him. Of course you may get unlucky and hit his main fleet. In this case you will get no battle report apart from that your fleet has been reported missing. Now you know where his main fleet is based. Build more warships and keep hitting him, blockade his ports and leave 1 ship. This will force him to move his fleet to free his ports. This will make him waste gold and time. If you happen to be online when he counterattacks, you can retreat your blockading single ship to safety. Fighting back in this way is fun for you, but embarrassing for him. He may retaliate and occupy your ports with a huge fleet of his. But do not worry, it costs him a lot of gold and he will soon give up. He is even more likely to give up, if your fleet is hidden in a safe secret harbour and you keep hitting his ports despite of him blockading you. You can then negotiate peace with him. Or he will lift the blockade to hunt for your fleet. Also if you see an opportunity to rebel, you should. If he is blockading you with 20 ram-ships, build 40 rams all in one go and rebel. You can see how many hours it will take to build 40 rams, so you can time this event so that you are online when they are ready. Just click “rebel” button and watch the action. Don’t forget to relocate your fleet after an attack, because he will see on his battle report from where the attack had come and will come looking for you. Let him hit an empty space! |
3) Small vs Large
If you are no longer a very small but a somewhat a bigger player in addition to your raiding navy you can send a plundering party of 40 catapults, 400 hoplites and 240 swordsmen and 70 sulphur carabineers. This army is large enough to fight for two rounds on equal terms. Consider getting a safe haven in a neutral city a couple of islands away from your enemy. Build up your embassy to the required level and start messaging players near your nemesis. Chances are they don’t like him, because if he is pestering you he may have pestered them in the past too. Once garrison right’s treaty is secured, move your army into the neutral city. From there you sally in force and occupy some small player with 0 military score, near your enemy, preferably on their island. Send a plundering mission to his city. If you run into his main army retreat immediately. You army is large enough to fight on equal terms for 2 rounds. If your troops are fully upgraded your casualty rate would be similar, apart from your catapults taking hits from his balloons.If you hit an undefended city, haul away the loot. A real treat is to hit a small garrison and wipe it out. Your enemy will get mad and will start raiding all of your cities. But if you keep your warehouses high he will get nothing, and if your walls are high he will take casualties, as well as waste time and gold. Keep hitting him while his army is attacking you and he will be forced to retreat to defend his cities. Eventually both parties get tired of this and peace is restored. |
4) Medium vs Large
This is the same as the previous, only your send two attacking waves. First wave consists of 40 rams, 500 hoplites, 300 swordsmen, 70 carabineers, 60 gyrocopters. The second wave consists of 30 mortars and a dozen spearmen. You can include doctors with the first wave. The second wave will follow 10 minutes after the first and include cargo ships to haul away the loot. Why such elaborate tactics? Because you don’t know where his main army is located and what level is his wall. Catapults cannot breach a level 30 wall fast enough for your purposes, so you need to use mortars. But mortars are expensive and very vulnerable to balloon attack. So we send a first scouting wave of rams, and if we ran into a large army that we cannot defeat, we retreat both waves.
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5) Large vs Large
The same tactic can be used when you become a large player yourself. It makes little send to engage in a set-piece battle and get a Pyrrhic victory. It is far better to hit a weak garrison with your main force and achieve a good kill ratio in your favour.
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