Episode 2 Basic knowledge

1. Buildings

Some of you might wonder what buildings you really need and what buildings you don't. So here it is:

Village Headquarters (Level 20)
Barracks (Level 25)
Stable (Level 20)
Workshop (Level 5)
Academy (Level 1)
Smithy (Level 20)
Rally point (Level 1)
Market (Level 20)
Timber camp (Level 30)
Clay pit (Level 30)
Iron mine (Level 30)
Farm (Level 30)
Warehouse (Level 30)
Hiding place (Level 0)
Wall (Level 20)

* A few modifications are in order, depending on your level of activity and village specialization:
- If you are active at least once a day, you only need a lvl 25 Warehouse. You'll never go over those 150k resources that it can hold.
- In some of your offensive villages, you might want to build a lvl 15 workshop. I'll explain later what's with this.

* Why this concern for buildings? Buildings give you points. High points give you bad morale. Bad morale gives you higher losses when you attack. So the fewer the points, the better. That's if you don't go for a better rank, in which case you would want to build up everything. (Not a good move if you were to ask me).

* Why build the maximum level for Barracks and Stables? To train troops faster. It really helps. If you are having a conflict with someone one on one, and if you were both active and all other conditions would be even, the one with higher levels would win in the end because his troops would be ready faster.
Here are some examples of training times:

Stable Lvl 11:
Scout 05:16
Light cavalry 10:32
Heavy cavalry 21:04

Stable Lvl 20:
Scout 03:07
Light cavalry 06:14
Heavy cavalry 12:28

Barracks Lvl 15:
Spear fighters 04:43
Swordsmen 06:57

Barracks Lvl 25:
Spear fighters 02:38
Swordsmen 03:52

I think this is enough to convince you.


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2. Village & Troop Specialization

I've seen people that attacked with archers and defended with axes. That's bad. I've seen people making mixed villages (offense troops & defense troops in the same vilage). I think that's bad too.

Some don't bother to read the "help" section of Tribal Wars - http://en12.tribalwars.net/help2.php?article=units. It can do wonders & with simple math you can determine that the best troops for offense are in this order:

Axeman (AX) - 40
Light cavalry (LC) - 32.5
High Cavalry (HC) - 25
Swordsman (SW) - 25

The rest of the troops should never be used for attacks.
Now, you may wonder why do I put those figures, that are not quite what you're used to. This regards another very important aspect in TW: population.
In a village you can only have about 20000 population (not troops). Some troops require higher population. Let's say you build a HC. It will cost you 6. It will give you 25 offense points per point of population. It's the same as a swordman. That's why I made that ranking.

Here's the complete stats per point of population:
1 sp/pop: 10AT - 15MD 45CD
1 sw/pop: 25AT - 50MD 15CD
1 ax/pop: 40AT - 10MD 05CD
1 hc/pop: 25AT - 33MD 13CD
1 lc/pop: 33AT - 07MD 10CD
* MD=melee defense, CD=cavalry defense.
* Catapults and Rams don't do damage against troops (We'll discuss them later)

Another thing to take into consideration (and that is very simple) is using the enemy troops against him. If he has strong melee defense, attack with cavalry. If he has strong cavalry defense, attack with melee. And so on.

So, the best troops for attacking a player with spearmen would be axeman, while you must attack a player with swordsman with low cavalry. This ensures your losses will be minimum. In defense, you should use an even combination of swordsman and spearmen . That will give you the best defense against all kind of attacks. You should always use the calculator from the rally point to see what units would be best to use when attacking (or defending) against certain troops.

Now, for village specialization. As I've said earlier, you only have 20k population available. If you train half defense, half offense, you would not be able to defend properly, and also not be able to attack well. Only 1 attack counts, even if they arrive at the same time so if you have more troops in that attack than the defender you will loose less troops. If you have a mixed village, you would have available only 10k or 15k (k as in thousands) population. So the attacks would be less effective and you would loose more troops. Study those stats for attack and defense and you will see why.

So, you should have something like this (If you build the villages right you should have somewhere between 20000 and 21000 population available for troops):

A. General Attack (All type of defenders):
- 6000 axeman
- 4000 light cavalry
- 100 scouts
* 260 rams
* 50 catapults

B. Attack against melee defenders (majority of swordsman):
- 2000 axeman
- 6000 light cavalry
- 100 scouts
* 260 rams
* 50 catapults

C. Attack against cavalry defenders (majority of spearman)
- 14000 axeman
- 100 scouts
- 1200 light cavalry
* 260 rams
* 50 catapults

D. Attack against melee and cavalry defenders (majority of spearman + swordman)
- 11000 axeman
- 100 scouts
- 2000 light cavalry
* 260 rams
* 50 catapults

E. Nuke attack (against great number of defenders, use it to destroy the wall):
- 15000 axeman
* 1200 rams

F. Scouting village
- 10000 scouts

G. General defense village
- 7000 spearmen
- 7000 swordsman
- 2000 Light Cavalry
or
- 10000 spearmen
- 10000 swordsman

H. Support type village (Use it to quickly support other villages)
- 4000 spearmen
- 5000 swordsman
- 2000 heavy cavalry

* Use catapults to target only the rally point if you plan to take his village, or the wall if your morale is between 60% and 80% (if it's lower or higher it's useless).

* Figures should change depending on the defender. If he has no wall, it's obvious you should not use rams or catapults.

* Never make more than 260 rams if you morale is higher than 90%. If it decreases start to build more rams. Don't use less rams if you attack a level 20 wall. Always use rams if the defender has a wall. Don't use rams if he hasn't. Always send rams with troops because they don't do damage without troops.

* Some villages are stacked with defense troops from more than 1 village. If that's the case and you want only to bring down his wall a few levels so that your other attacks do more damage, train between 1000 and 1500 rams and only axemen to accompany them. You should have an offensive village like that just in case.

* Don't make more than 100 scouts per offensive village. They take population that you can otherwise use to make damage. But always use at least 10 scouts with every attack. Information is a weapon.

* Never attack with defense troops and never defend with offense troops.

* If you want to have some defense in your offensive villages, have some troops from a defense village permanently stationed there as support.


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3. Activity

This is why this game is called tribalwars: those that are active and like to make friends gather in tribes. On the long term, those with strong tribes survive. A strong tribe has active people. From time to time, of course you will have to be away a few days and you won't be able to login. Maybe you want to come back and not feel that you've wasted all the time here by remaining behind with building and training. Maybe you want to come back and still find your villages intact. Maybe you don't want to come back at all

Whatever the case, try and make a few friends within the tribe and if you go away set them as account sitters. Your account will be safe with them if you plan to return. If you go and don't set anyone as sitter, in 10 days you'll go "red", and in 2 to 3 weeks you'll go "gray" (abandoned). So you will come back and you'll find your villages gone. So try and find a sitter to prevent that. We all do this sooner or later.


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4. Other Questions

Make a post here or send me or the other experienced players a mail and we'll help you gladly. Other tribes are tricky and noble beginners. They lure them into joining and after that they call them noobs and attack them. I see that as "chickenish" and dishonorant. We must help all become stronger. Strength in numbers and quality, and above all loyalty. Have a good game


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5. Nobles

I've just seen a report from someone that attacked with 2 nobles in the same attack. Guys, don't do that. If you attack with 1 or if you attack with 10 nobles in the same attack, it will still do somewhere between 20 and 35. So if you need to take a village fast it's better to send them sepparately. And no more than 4 attacks if you plan to noble train a village. There are cases in which you need 5 but that is very rare. If you use 5, you risk to noble yourself. And yes, you can do that too.

* When you noble train someone and you succeed with 4 attacks but you've sent 5 you still have a chance that you won't noble yourself, because immediately after you noble a village its loyalty goes up to 25. So if the last attack doesn't do more than 25, you are lucky If you MUST take a village asap, you can use 5 nobles. But I repeat, separately, 1 with each attack, not all in the same attack.


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6. Morale

Someone just asked how morale can be influenced. It's simple actually. The morale is given by the difference in points between the attacker and the defender. If you attack someone close to your points, you'll have good morale. If you attack someone with low points compared to you, it will decrease depending on that difference up to 30%. That means you'll only do 30% of the usual damage. Combined with bad luck, which is random and can get up to -25%, bad morale can be a very bad thing. That's why I told earlier that you should take care of what buildings you have. Basically high points are bad for morale.