How can I be ready to defend myself with alliance help? (endgame version)

How can I be ready to defend myself with alliance help?

0. Granaries: highest priority in defense is granaries. Build at least 2 level 20 granaries in every village. Granaries are far more important than warehouses!

1. Main building level 20, wall level 20. Any village more than 2 weeks old should already have this.

2. Put 20 scouts (pathfinders, equites legati) in EVERY village. (10 may be too few.)

3. Armoury: Upgrade only DEFENSE and SCOUTS in armoury.

4. Blacksmith: Upgrade only OFFENSE and SCOUTS in armoury. This includes RAMS and CATAPULTS.

5. Tournament square: At least level 5, preferably level 10, and level 15 is good. Level 20 is expensive and not much different than level 15. Upgrade to that if you have tons of resources to burn.

6. Trade Office: At least level 10, preferably level 15.


Here's why:

0. Granaries: highest priority in defense is granaries. Build at least 2 in every village. Granaries are far more important than warehouses.

Why: If you have 40k troops defending you from a big attack, a single full granary lasts only 2 hours. From that point on, about 1333 phalanx will die every hour (or 570 praetorians per hour). Yikes!

How: "But I don't have any open spots for a granary!"
Make an open spot. This is more important than any other building. Here are some ideas of buildings you can destroy:
-crannies (not useful anymore)
-trappers (not useful anymore: see trapping calculations)
-embassy (you only need ONE among all villages and only to change alliance...the culture point bonus is small until it reaches level 10-20 anyway: build Trade Offices and hold celebrations for CP)
-maybe blacksmith, armoury, or academy
-others? (ask for advice if you still need more space after destroying those)

1. MB 20, Wall 20:

2. Scouts:
With no wall, 20 scouts will tell you if you are scouted by up to 1700 enemy scouts. (If the enemy sends 2000 scouts, you will not know you have been scouted.) Also, a rough guide is that with a level 20 wall and level 20 (armoury) scouts, you can prevent all scouting attempts of up to as many scouts as you have. If you have 300 scouts, they will kill 300 enemy scouts (approximately).

Level 0 wall:
10 scouts detect up to 200
20 scouts detect up to 1700

Level 20 wall:
10 scouts detect up to 900
20 scouts detect up to 7500

(If you upgrade your scouts in the armoury, they will protect you from more enemy scouts.)

Level 0 wall:
10 upgraded scouts detect up to 1200
20 upgraded scouts detect up to 9800

Level 20 wall:
10 upgraded scouts detect up to 5400
20 upgraded scouts detect up to 43000

(Upgrading scouts in blacksmith means that they scout better. If you send 500 un-upgraded to a village with 400 scouts, 324 will die, but if you send 500 scouts upgraded to level 20, then only 174 will die. Much better!)

Upgrading scouts in armoury means they defend from scouts better. If you are scouted by 500 and you have 400 unupgraded, 324 will die like before, but if your 400 are upgraded, ALL 500 will die, and they get no scout report! (Actually, up to 671 will die with no scouting report...that's pretty good! Upgrading scouts is VERY well worth it.)


3. Armoury: Upgrade only DEFENSE and SCOUTS in armoury. Every player should have their defense troops and scouts upgraded in at least one village to level 10 by now, preferably 2-3 villages at level 15. Scout upgrades are especially cheap and especially powerful!

Units to upgrade in Armoury:
Gauls: phalanx, pathfinders, druids, maaaaaaaybe haeduan.
Romans: praetorians, equites legati, maaaaaaybe legionnaires (but typically these aren't very good defense, even after upgraded...stick to praetorians)
Teutons: spearmen, scouts, paladins

Offense units typically have low defense for their cost. Yes, Equites Caesaris has 80 defense from infantry...but praetorians have 65 infantry defense at 1/5 of the cost and 1/4 of the crop upkeep! Don't bother. Same goes for rams and catapults. Haeduan are right on the edge. Use them if necessary, but they're expensive per defense point, even against pure cavalry!

Travian FAQ states that each level of blacksmith and armoury upgrade provides a bonus of approximately 1.5%. Theoretically this provides a level 20 upgrade bonus of 34.69% (upgrades are multiplicative, 1.015 * 1.015 * ... * 1.015 multiplying 20 times, not additive 20 * 1.5 = 30%). However, I recently discovered that there's a crazy formula to figure it out. Most of the bonuses are still 25-50%. Some bonuses are actually 70-100%, but those are the ones that we don't care about anyway (defense for scouts, rams, cats). The only crazy one is that the cavalry defense bonus for catapults is 400% (bringing catapult defense up to 50...still terrible for an expensive unit).

4. Blacksmith: upgrade only OFFENSE and SCOUTS in armoury. This includes RAMS and CATAPULTS.

Offense units to upgrade:
Gauls: swords, pathfinders, haeduan, rams, catapults
Romans: imperians, EL, EI, EC, rams, catapults
Teutons: axes, TK, rams, catapults, maaaaaybe clubbies (see clubby tips for the few times clubbies are useful...generally, after early game, you should not train clubbies)

Same story. Defense units have low offense. Also, I wouldn't recommend upgrading clubbies or legionnaires...mostly because I wouldn't recommend using these units at all after early game!

Key note: Make sure to work on upgrading catapults early! Catapults take the longest to upgrade in blacksmith. They are significantly more powerful when upgraded, especially against stonemasons in an enemy capital.


5. Tournament square: at least level 5, preferably level 10, and level 15 is good. Level 20 is expensive and not much different than level 15.

Why: We're going to frequently send defense 100-200 squares away as the game moves further. A level 10 tournament square means that your praetorians can travel 200 squares in 23 hours instead of 40 hours, and 100 squares in 13 hours instead of 20. It makes a big difference!

6. Trade Office: At least level 10, preferably level 15. By WW time, you should have level 15+ trade offices in every village. Only 1-3 villages max should go without a trade office (e.g., your major production village(s)).

The higher your trade offices, the fewer merchants you will need to send to help with the larger and larger CFDs coming up. This is also essential for the Wonders of the World, as you will be sending almost every merchant from almost every village to the WW(s) with all of your resources (crop most of all, but ALL resources will be needed!).

This is excellent. I would also add that high-level trade offices are important in all villages since sending crop to feed the troops in the WW or heavily defended villages will be critical.