Protect your Army from
Annihilation
Weather you are a seasoned hard-core player with a multimillion total score or a green beginner with only two tiny villages you can use this handy and little-documented feature of the game. Select a city belonging to the biggest and meanest player in the area – one who is not in your alliance. You will see square buttons giving various options. We are not looking at red buttons for “pillage” or “occupy”, but for blue ones, “defend city” and “defend port”. Click on “defend city” and you will be given options of which troops you wish to send to defend your neighbour and for how many hours. Now, why would anybody want to defend a big and a mean neighbour? The reason is simple – your troops will not be in your own city, so they could not be destroyed there. Instead your troops will be in the city of the big and mean neighbour, behind his high walls and protected by his large army. In the unlikely event that your neighbour is attacked, your troops will end up defending his city, hopefully alongside his powerful army. But if you send them there with no cooks, they are will get hungry very soon and will flee, thus minimising your losses. Of course, nobody attacks big mean players. Nobody dared to attack me for over 2 years. You can send your troops away on a defend mission of up-to 8 hours, plus the travel time both ways. When sending the troops to defend chose a neighbour with the highest military score. You can even send your army to defend the guy who is attacking you. He will see your troops marching toward his city on a defend mission, and he would be able to see them when he clicks “troops in town” button. But he would not be able to eject them or harm them in any way. You can send troops to defend towns on another islands too, they will not be bounced off by the defending navy, because they come in peace. This way you can easily calculate when your troops return. For example if you expect to be away from computer for 10 hours and you expect a massive attack, send your troops two islands away for 8 hours. They will return in about 10 hours. (8 hour mission, plus, 80 minutes sailing time to and back, plus loading time in your port.) I frequently use this tactic to slip the net when I am trapped on an enemy alliance island with all ports blocked and the superior forces closing in. One of my favourite things in Ikariam is to load 4-5 thousand troops on cargo boats early in the morning, so they arrive at their secret destination (a distant allied town, or a small neutral town I captured earlier) by the evening. When I come home from work I log into Ikariam and find my troops have arrived and are relaxing in their hideout. From there I send them on another journey – just a short hop an island or two away – to where the target is located. I like to target biggest and strongest players on the server. I get on the designated enemy island by capturing a small neutral town there. I use a small naval force of 20 fire ships to capture the neutral port. If the neutral player has 0 military score, you can dispense with the naval escorts. But it is always good to have a few warships at your disposal. Once on the island I attack my target. The aim here is not to pillage, but to have fun, that is to damage their army and occupy their cities. I don’t include cooks with the army: if it is impossible to win in 4-5 rounds, I recall the first wave and attack another target. Of course the moment my troops land on the island, my target and all his alliance mates on the island get a report, that a “town on your island has been occupied by troops from – name of town and a link to where my troops have come from ” Occasionally I discover myself outnumbered with all escape routes cut off, and tens of thousands of enemy soldiers are closing in from all sides. Now, I don’t like being a sitting duck, locked in a defensive battle, so if there is time to load the troops, I send them to some hidey-hole on another island nearby. I would reinforce them and resume the offensive on another day, possibly at a different time, at a different location. If the neutral trade port is a low level it can take hours to load the army though. Fortunately there is also a recall button that loads your army instantly and they sail home. Disadvantage of that is that the retreating army will go all the way back to a distant hometown and you cannot use them to attack again a couple hours later. But say, I occupied a few enemy cities after a fierce battle and they all have lots of warships in harbour. In the meantime my own navy had to pull back to avoid defeat and my initial landing spot has been blockaded. There is truly, no way out now. Or is there? Some players in this situation hit Vacation-mode to save their army. But there is a better way – send your army to defend any of the enemy cities on the island. Set the mission time to 8 hours*. Once the enemy liberates their cities, you recall your troops and they get scattered. Don’t worry; they will arrive safe and sound in your cities by tomorrow. In the past there was a bug that made the troops return to home cities in just 4 hours. Now it is 4 hours + travel time. But occasionally the bug resurfaces. It is a very handy undocumented feature. In the past, in some versions of the game, the troops returning from a defend mission, or retreating after an attack would fight the troops that occupied their landing ground. There had been no way to retreat then, save for hitting V-mode. If this feature is reinstated it is best to send your troops away for as long as possible – 8 hours. After occupying your landing ground the enemy is likely to pull back to avoid paying double upkeep. In any case, when raiding powerful enemies hit-n-run style always send your army without cooks. If they are cornered they will scatter to four winds after 5-6 rounds. |
Use your Cooks creatively
If your army has 30 cooks it will fight to the last man. There may be some situations where you may want just that, although I cannot image what that situation might be, unless it is a major alliance battle that goes on for days. In most other cases you would prefer your defeated army to retreat. Once your flanks or frontline are gone, the battle becomes one sided with the enemy swordsmen chopping down row after row of you sulphur carabineers who don’t even fight back. From that point on the enemy losses are zero, while your army is annihilated round after round. Replacing lost army units is costly. Not only it takes vast amounts of wood and sulphur, you also lose taxpayers that get drafted. A wise general knows when to retreat.
So you have to calibrate how quickly the moral declines, so your troops will flee when the battle becomes hopeless. As a guide 15 cooks will keep your army fighting on almost indefinitely, as long as they are constantly winning. The morale always drops 10% per round due to troops getting tired. But it would drop a further 2% if the opposing side has more people and a further 5% if the enemy uses balloons and drops even more if your losses are higher, or if you suffer more damage. I found 20 cooks to be the best for strong garrisons in their own towns. They will keep the moral steady. Once the main troops are gone and anxilliary spearmen take to the field, your losses will start to mount and the morale will decline fast. This is a time to retreat, and indeed your troops will soon run for the hills. 30 cooks are needed in large alliance battles that are expected to last for days. Contrary to popular belief your allies don’t share their food with your troops. But they do share ammo. For raids into enemy territory I use no cooks for small armies, and from 5 to 10 cooks for large armies. When you are sending a powerful army to crash a weak opponent, you may use as little as 10 cooks. This will ensure that his army will be annihilated before your troops get too hungry. In the event that your victim has powerful friends and they come to his aid, your army will simply run once things get too hot for them. Unfortunately if your enemies use Ares Miracle your army would not auto-retreat and would perish to the last hoplite... Even though Ares Miracle's official description states that it affects troops fighting in the vicinity of player's own cities, in reality it affects his troops fighting anywhere, even on another end of the world. It is enough for a single player to activate this miracle in a battle and every single participant in this engagement would fight to the end, unless manualy recalled of course. |