Attack Basics
There are 4 types of attacks you can send against another player, all of these types can only be sent from a city with a castle.
Scout: When you select the 'Scout' action, your scouts fight the defender's scouts. No other units take place in the battle. This option can be selected against any city. The purpose of this attack is to gain information about the enemy.
- If none of your scouts survive, you get no information (aside's from the fact that they have enough scouts to defeat the number you sent)
- If any of your scouts survive, your report will show the number and type of every troop in the defending city at the time the scout hit. (you will not see troops that are native to that city, but happened to be away on raids, support, or attacking another player at the time your scouts hit)
- If more of your scouts survived than the defender's number of surviving scouts, then you will also see the total plunderable resources in the defender's city.
- If twice as many of your scouts survive as the defender's, you can see the numbers and levels of all fortifications (walls, towers, and traps) in the defending city.
- If four times as many of your scouts survive as the defender's, you can see the numbers and levels of every building in the defending city.
Plundering: This option is available against any city, and steals resources from the opponent. It tells your troops to get in, steal the resources, and get out without fighting much. It results in minimal losses (especially for the defender) and any surviving members of your attack force returns home with as many resources as they can loot.
Assault: Assault works like plundering in that your troops attack the enemy city and return home with as many resources as they can carry, only assaults have 5x more casualties for both sides. This option is only available against castled cities, for which it is a better choice than plundering. If you have a superior force, this kills far more defenders than plundering - reducing the defender's advantage and allowing you to take fewer losses on repeat lootings; if you have an inferior force, you probably shouldn't be attacking in the first place.
Siege:
This option can only be sent against castles, and is necessary to capture them. Unlike the other attack types, which all hit once and return home, sieges hit every hour until you recall your troops or capture the enemy castle. This is mainly used for capturing or destroying an enemy castle, but can also be useful against enemies that are too far away for repeated assaults to be practical.
To capture an enemy castle, you just need to send a baron with a siege. Each siege wave that the baron takes part in can result in up to a 10% gain in Claim. When Claim reaches 100%, the castle is yours. It is also possible to lose Claim if you take more losses than the defender; and Claim is reduced to 0% if all of the attacker's barons are killed.
If siege engines (catapults, rams, or war galleons) take part in the siege, they can destroy enemy buildings and fortifications. Rams destroy fortifications, Catapults destroy buildings, and War Galleons destroy both. A building's durability is equal to its total resource cost.
For example: it takes 38k wood and 20k stone to upgrade a quarry from level 9 to 10. That means that it would take 58k attack vs. buildings to reduce that quarry from level 10 down to 9. Catapults have a base attack vs. buildings of 250, so it would take 232 catapults do reduce a quarry from level 10 to 9 in a single attack.
An important note for all attack types:
No matter what type of attack you're using, it is best to avoid attacking during night protection. Night protection begins at 10 p.m. server time and ramps up rather quickly to a maximum of 40% reduction in attack power that lasts from midnight until 8 a.m. at which point it declines until it reaches 0% again at 10 a.m. As you can imagine, a 40% reduction in attack power throws a battle drastically in favor of the defender. You can still win a battle if you have overwhelming forces, but you would still take much heavier losses than you would otherwise. Night protection also affects a sieging baron's claim percentage. During full night protection a baron can gain a maximum of only 6% claim per siege wave.
Sieging a Castle
If you are going to siege someone it is best to assault first to clear out their troops. This allows you to take less losses during the following siege, which is important for protecting your expensive siege equipment and especially barons.
Ideally, this clearing assault will hit immediately before the siege so the defender will not have a chance to build up more defending troops. This can be achieved by either splitting your forces (I like to send my cavalry on clearing assaults; and my artillery, barons, and infantry on the siege) or coordinating attacks with alliance members.
Ideally, this clearing assault will hit immediately before the siege so the defender will not have a chance to build up more defending troops. This can be achieved by either splitting your forces (I like to send my cavalry on clearing assaults; and my artillery, barons, and infantry on the siege) or coordinating attacks with alliance members.