Kingdom Design Part 2

After you've been through a few wars you develop an appreciation for defense troops, how they handle themselves and how many it takes to stay off an attacker.  Whether your goal is to completely annihilate your attacker's Offensive supply or just dodge and snipe a cap attempt, having nearby troops by the thousand can be a city saver.

This setup is where you grow defense troops in every city. Yes, I know how that sounds, but hear me out.  If you grow 3k lancers and 1000 guards (and/or 4k sentries) in each city, you can mount a seriously decent defense for when you are attacked.  Guardians are awesome for a quick response all purpose defense troop.  If you have 5K guardians in your city, coupled with 200 - 300 RAMS (yes rams as a defense troop, who'd have thought) and your wall is 25, it will take several cities of bombardment to clear your city.  The rams actually fortify the wall bonus and kill off any rams or ballistas they may send at you. Now guards, they move quick, they defend hard and are great for a first line import.  However, do not underestimate the power of lancers and sentries!  These guys take little time, resources and farm space to train, even though they walk a little slower, they are definitely worth the effort.

So back to design, if you have 3K lancers, 3 - 4K sentries (that's 6000 farm space) and 1k guards (another 4000 farm space) that's 10k farm space, in a maxed city, which is anywhere from 3k to 4k of farm used by buildings, you still have 9 - 10k left for attack troops!  When you are attacking it will certainly take you longer to clear a city, but you can rest assured that your kingdom is safe.

It wouldn't hurt to have a NUKE city in the midst of your cluster of Defense forward cities. A city that has strictly attack troops can be a quick and easy way to crush a man's soul.. I mean city... In the same breath, having a strictly Def city within your cluster is also smart. Nothing like an extra 8000 lancers within 3 hours of your scholar cluster to make a guy sleep better.

Scholar cities, when setting up Defense Posturing kingdom design, you want to grow your scholars and adequately support each scholar wave, bundle three cities, all within a 6 block radius of one another (the closer the better - especially if math isn't your strong suit) in each city you grow 2 scholar waves.  When actively warring, you want to support each scholar wave as if it were going to be sniped, the more troops the better!!!  If your cities are close by, you can always use those three to set up scholar trains, they will land within a reasonable amount of time and you will cap your target.  It is always better to send more scholar waves then you think you'll need, you may cap, then recap, but at least YOU have the city, not your victim, and you can always retrain your scholars.

Kingdom Design Part 1 - Spoke Wheel

This section covers the Spoke Wheel design where you cap, cluster and branch to expand quickly.

The design of your kingdom is important as you grow and conquer cities.  I cluster my cities for ease of defense and growth, pairing a Main City with both a Defensive and Offensive city.  I usually conq a 4th to be versatile, grow scholars and assist with Defense in my first cluster and Atk in my second cluster and then alternate.  As my cities grow I eventually open the academy in all to assist with scholarship contribution, but initially I market resources to my main city and grow them there.

Everyone starts with the Main City, you have a nice mix of def and atk, open your Academy, and Rams.  I typically don't train Ballistas until my 3rd city.  I try and max out my buildings in my first city, but I grab my second city as soon as I can grow 2 Scholars.

From my main city I grab the best looking largest city near my main city within 6 to 8 grids away. This second city is always my defensive city. I grow only Lancers, Sentries and Guardians. I max my Barracks and Stable, Wall, Warehouse and Farm I keep my resource buildings around 25 to 30. If the acad isn't built I don't build it until I've got a good solid troop base.

My third city is offensive atk troops, Zerks, Scouts and Knights. I usually research Ballistas at this point mainly to Crop Barbies. City 3 is in the opposite direction of city 2 on the other side of city 1. It is 6 - 8 grids away from main city. City #4 is used as both a scholar city and Defensive.  Again, this I alternate this 4th city between Atk and Def in each cluster of cities.

Once you have your cluster, branch out to a new area. This 5th city is your new Main City. I use it as a foothold to a new area. I typically conq a barb or inactive player city close to acad lvls. Less work and res put into it the better. Build troops as if it were ur main city, then cap a city for defense nearby and so on and so forth.

Everyone does it differently, I have found it very helpful to have a mass of specific troops that I can send as a "nuke", a "city breaker" or as support to my other cities and or guild mates.