ENG Deff guide
Defense guide
First thing you will do is click on every single individual incoming attack a player has. Do not just look at the rally point - players can change village names so it appears attacks are coming from the same village when they are not. If there are 100 incoming attacks, click all 100 and check the coords of each to see if its different villages. Alternately, Travisimo is a useful program to have installed because the sidebar will display the village of origin when you scroll over an attack. Alternately, you can just look at the User IDs displayed in the bottom-left corner of FF to most quickly notice any decoy village names.
You can use the following program to determine the speed of their attack so long as you have a notion of when it launched. if it's not cata speed, just dodge and spend down (possibly with a followhome)
https://www.javaschubla.de/2006/travian/wegerechner/wegerechner-t3i.html?lang=en&dim=400
For chiefings, a player cannot chief w/ a single village, it takes a minimum of 2 villages to chief. In general, if you have two villages landing at the same time or within a few seconds of each other, it's assumed to be a chiefing attempt and must be rein'd (if they have no gap between waves) or micro'd (If they have at least 1 second in between the waves). Sometimes enemies will send single waves to all villages, and a few hours later, another player sends single waves to all villages, one of which for each player happens to be a chiefing wave. You will just have to monitor battle logs to see if loyalty is lowered and go from there.
Another general rule: Don't defend if the wall is under level 20, except in major situations such as a cap/hammer defense or chiefing defense, or you know for absolute certainty you can rein to break a hammer. If it is below level 20, gold it up. It also helpful to activate the 10% defense bonus from gold. Preats, phalanx, spears, druids, and paladins are all primary defensive units. Legionaires and Haeduans can be used to defend but I do not recomemdn building them for that intention. Imperians, axes, EI, EC, and TKs can all be made into emergence defense units, but only when the alternative is a ruined capital or a chiefed hammer. Never, ever defend with maces, catas, rams, chiefs, settlers, etc.
After you decide which are real and which are fake, it is time to decide how you will defend. This is the order of priority for defense:
Defending a possible chiefing attempt on a hammer
Defending atatcks on the capital
defending non-hammer chiefing attempts (can usually be donme via micro-reining)
defending non-chiefing attacks (can always be done by splitting waves via micro and using gold to rebuild damage inflicted)
Defense options: Reining to break a hammer, micro reining, dodging and spending down.
When reining to break a hammer:
1. check hammer tracker to gain the most recent intelligence on the hammer.
2. Call in the reinforcements via either MM or contacting squad-mates.
3. DO NOT reinforce before the clear if you cannot bring in enough defenders to destroy the opposing hammer. Make use of that Plus simulator.
4. The only exception to this is when you can wipe out at least half of a large, active hammer in a resource effective trade (relatively equal resource cost)
When micro reining:
Your goal is to time the reins to land at the same second as the first wave of the attack. If you have 6 incoming attacks, landing at xx:xx:01, xx:xx:02, xx:xx:03, etc, your goal is to time reins to land at xx:xx:01. Since the enemy launched their attack first, any rein you time to land at that second will land behind the enemy's. First to launch is first to land, last to launch is last to land. You can also time multiple splits, have reins landing at :01, :02, and :03, in case the enemy has a large escort w/ some of his waves and kills your micro, you have another micro falling in right after.
There are two tricks used to guarantee that your microrein lands at the correct time:
Instead of sending only one wave, line up 4 or so tabs each with 1/4th of the defense troops in a given village and bring them to the final confirmation screen. Starting timed to land 2 seconds before the Landing time of the fist enemy attack, you begin clicking "OK" and pressing ctrl +tab to move to the next tab, aiming for about half a second between each wave. Think of it as like intentionally slowed down cata attacks. You then cancel any waves that land too long before or too long after the microrein window (gap in the enemy attacks). By using this method, and having troops of many speed types in a defense hub (a few catas, a few rams, infantry defense units, and cavalry defense units) to slow down the waves and therefore give you more attempts, you can ensure a perfect microrein every time.
Microing is the primary means of defense against most non-hammer chiefing attempts. However, there are several other methods you need to be using:
Residence upgrade
Palace Switch
Big Party
A residence upgrade must be timed to complete the exact second of the first of the suspected chiefing waves. Gold can be used in the demoing of residence/palace, so you can attain multiple chances to time it properly.
In order to figure out when to click build on a residence/palace upgrade, you simply take the landing time of the first chiefing wave and subtract the time listed as the building time of the residence, attaining the time the building must be started. Then, you simply click build 1 or 2 seconds before that time displays on the server clock. Keep trying and instant demoing until you get the timing right.
Perhaps the most elegant of chiefing defenses is the palace switch. In order to perform a palace switch, you demolish your palace from it's current location and the residence from the village being chiefed, using the main building and gold for autocomplete. You then build a palace in the village being chiefed. This tactic works on many moderately skilled players because they do not think to target both the residence and the palace. However, it will never work a second time on any intelligent player, so you cannot rely on this method. When you use this method, always try to time a palace upgrade to complete the second of the first chiefing attack for even greater protection.
The last method used in chiefing defense is a big party, which will reduce the loyalty losses from chiefs. They should always be used in a chiefing defense.
After deciding which villages to rein, and how you're going to rein them, it's time to call in reins and wheat. You can MM entire wings, contact neighbors within a certain radius (60 squares more or less, depending on how much time you have), contact squadmates, use your own reins.
If you decide to MM a wing, be specific with what you want to happen. Give a wing only one target to rein. Be specific with how many troops you want. You could request anywhere from 200-500 defenders per player, 1-2k defenders per player, etc. We are very good about sending reins, so make sure you don't overload the villages to where you can't handle wheat. Always request wheat with reins. Sometimes you can request a specific amount, such as enough to feed the troops for 10 hours, 20 hours, however long you intend to keep them. Be specific with EVERYTHING - include village coordinates, a direct link to the village (Which can be found by going to the map overview and clicking on the village and copying/pasting the link in the address bar), time attacks land in EST (be sure to include whether it's am/pm, Wednesday morning, Thursday afternoon, 2 days from now, etc). The more important the village is, such as a capital with lvl 19 fields, the more reins it should have.
MM format:
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Recipient: [ally]
Topic: [MM] (Title of MM)
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Body of message
Subject: [MM] (Title of MM)
Reply to: name of defending player
(Background info, troop requests, time attacks are landing)
(Name- Optional)(Coords of defending village)
(Direct link of defending village)
____________________________________
Sample MM:
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Recipient: [ally]
Topic: [MM] Reins for Aeryus!
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Subject: [MM] Reins for Aeryus!
Reply to: Aeryus, reaper58
Aeryus has incoming from 7th O, and we're going to defend his cropper. Attacks are landing at 03:17:51 am EST Monday morning. Please send 1-2k defenders to land before that time to the following village:
b1) Alexandria (-52|-104)
https://s1.travian.us/karte.php?d=404053&c=67
Please send wheat with your troops as well.
Thanks!
reaper58
Defense Coordinator
______________________________________
You can MM your own wing directly. Be sure to use the map analyzer (https://travian.org.ua/us/s1) to see if any players in other wings are near you. ONLY MM for hammer chiefing and capital defenses. Never MM when the attack can easily be microed, splitting it's waves, instead.
If you decide to individually contact locals in the area, you can use the Travian analyzer (https://travian.ws/analyser.pl?s=us1) to find players in a surrounding radius. To do this, in the box that says "Give me information about," type in the coordinates and radius you're looking for. For example, if a player is located at (30|-15) and you want to get in contact with all members w/in a 60 square radius, you would type in 30, -15, 60. Adjust numbers accordingly.
You can also MM/contact locals for micro reins. Once again, be sure to include specifics about exactly when you want reins to land.
If you decide to not rein certain villages that have incoming, remove all troops from the village and spend down or trade out all resources. Do not let the enemy get any bounty. I often leave scouts in the village - a small amount, 20 or 50 or so, so it isn't a large loss if they die, but still keeps the enemy from scouting to see what is there, and they'll survive if its fakes.
Let's say you have incoming on 6 villages. All are 4-5 waves of cats, and appear to be real. Targets are Capital, hammer, and four feeders. You don't know the size of the hammer. You will rein capital and hammer village (If the hammer village is an active and decent sized hammer that is still beneficial in the war and the hammer village has tight incoming waves from multiple villages, indicating a chiefing), and you will micro rein or dodge/spend down the feeder hits.
Remember, you will stay with the operation until the entire defense is over with, or until you pass it on to someone else. If you call in reins, you better be able to support those reins with wheat, request help from another player to support them, or send them home. DO NOT LET THEM STARVE. If the you aren't willing to manage your own wheat, and you don't have time, and no one else volunteers, it is your responsibility to send the troops home. Failure to comply with these guidelines wil lresult in removal of MM priviledges.
Feel free to ask your squad leader or a more experienced player advice on how to handle any situation. We are here to help.
Key points:
-Rein to break a hammer, or don't rein at all
-Always defend capitals and hammer villages w/ a working hammer
-Use proper format and be specific when MM'ing
-Individually click on every incoming attack to see that coords it's coming from and the player.
-Be sure to check the population of the player attacking - small pop villages are probably fakes.
-Travian Map Program for finding locations of Wings/Players: https://travian.org.ua/uk/s5
-Travian World Analyzer for finding neighbors w/in a certain radius: https://travian.ws/analyser.pl?s=us1 Remember, for a 60 square radius for a village located at (30|-15), type in 30, -15, 60.