Fighting in Waves

Offense:

First of all you need to size up the defense to know how many units to bring into the battle. This is not the only way to attack and there are other wave combos you can choose, but this is what I personally like to do when attacking by land from a town with plenty of action points:

1st round/wave: 100 steam giants + 100 gyros
• The steam giants will just be chiseling away at the wall while your gyros will begin killing their bombardiers.
• You will be losing some steam giants because of the wall, the defender’s marksmen, and the defender’s mortars, but it’s better than losing your own mortars.
• If you know the defender doesn’t have any bombardiers, send in 18 mortars along with this wave to breach the wall.

2nd wave: Immediately after sending the 1st wave, send in 100 bombardiers
• The bombardiers will trail the first wave and will enter in the second round.
• They will kill the defending mortars.
• If you see from your CR that the defender has 0 mortars for you to kill, you can withdraw this wave before it hits.

3rd wave: 18-36 mortars
• The mortars are sent in their own wave so you can recall and replenish when necessary.
• With your air units (gyros and bombardiers) battling their air units, you can now breach the wall without losing a lot of mortars per round. The defender’s bombardiers won’t be as effective because some of them will be dying while only the ones that lasted are firing at your mortars.
• Once you see that you’ve almost broken through the wall, send in your 4th wave and 5th wave.
• If the defender has a lot of bombardiers, replace the mortars with rams once you are inside the wall.

4th wave: 200 marksmen
• The marksmen are sent in their own wave so you can recall and replenish when necessary.
• Marksmen are only effective once the wall has been taken down.

5th wave: More steam giants + 500 swordsmen + 50 cooks
• The swordsmen are in it to win it, so they won’t ever need to be recalled. That is why cooks are sent with this wave and it will boost the morale of all your troops already in battle.
• Swordsmen are only effective once the wall has been taken down.

Monitoring each round is important so you know what troops you can keep in battle and what troops need to be replenished. Once the defending bombers are gone, you can recall your wave of gyros since they won’t be serving a purpose anymore (unless you want to duke it out with the defending gyros; waste in my opinion). This will free up an action point if you need to send anything else.

Anytime you are recalling mortars or marksmen (after they run out of ammo) with the intention of sending them again, try to have a wave of them arriving as you are pulling out.

Swordsmen are extremely important. Be prepared to lose 60 swordsmen per round if your opponent also has swordsmen. Once you have killed all your opponents swordsmen, you will begin making their marksmen useless by killing all 49 on the field each round giving you a big advantage.

If the defender has a lot of bombers, you NEED to have a lot of gyros to take them out. Anytime the defender has a lot of mortars, you NEED to have a lot of bombers to take them out. This is why air units are so important. Having a lot of bombers is a good idea. You are sure to lose them in battle, but they will help you win.

Defense:

Having a surplus of steam giants, marksmen, swordsmen, bombers, gyros (basically most of the troops you should have anyway) is good. Once again a high number of swordsmen, gyros, and bombers is recommended. If they have more than you, they will most likely win the battle in the long run. Mortars are dangerous to have on defense if the attacker has bombardiers. You will take in a lot of damage. However, if the attacker does not have bombers, your mortars will help rape the frontline units.

Thanks for the above all very good and interesting. Would you also write something regarding ships and sea battles please.