With how much defense you play as a plunderer? Is it reasonable to plunder with relevantly low defense values?
I have plundered with less than 100% defense. Most people don't hit back lol.
Well, my defense bonuses are classified. I don't want to give away too much information. It's not as much as Alkayman, but it's the third highest in the hood, at my last check. A +250% defense bonus in LMA is absolutely beastly, luckily I've only faced one or two people with that in about 6 months parked in LMA. Really good defenses for the age is from +100-150%, those aren't very common, and they tend to be among the top 10 players. Typical defenses seem to range from +20-50% roughly, though some people who've raced up the tech tree have nothing, not a single Watchfire/Tribal Flame or even the Monastery. You're in ME, so I expect the numbers to be quite a bit higher, but even then you'll have neighbors that are pushovers.
Defending army also makes a difference; I've seen people with decent bonuses (up to a +64%!) wasted on a pair of Spearfighters. Even then, some people have defending armies that I find quite vulnerable; I've broken through defenses approaching a +100% without much effort. Few people retaliate anyway, though I've had some make a crack at me and fail rather epically:
It's really the most hardcore fighters that'll be a counter-threat to plundering and some of them will attack you anyway. I can break through just about anything with a 7 rogue + 1 attack unless they're packing somewhere over +100% on their defense and they've got CA units, particularly grenadiers, on their defense. If I need more than 2 or 3 hits to kill around at least half of their units, I'm in trouble. Usually, I save the rogues for the hardest neighbors though, and use regular troops targeted to weaknesses, or massed ranged attacks where they're really weak.
First day of Official Plundering.
Welcome to the Dark Side.
It takes a long time. Do you guys do it on automatic? Cause running 65+ fights every day is very time consuming.
I did get the classics - people with 6 Colonial troops and 60% defense (in my Modern Era city).
Though, I didn't get any FP. And little amount of goods. Its mostly coins and supplies. Hmmf.
I usually fight about halfway then hit auto mode - basically I get the situation to where even the AI can't screw up coming out of a no-troop-loss win. The time saved per battle really adds up when you're attacking 60+ people.
Don't go for coins/supplies. If the person you're attacking has nothing good to plunder then write their name down and revisit their city. I use docs.google.com in another tab.
I auto against Spearfighters with a 4 Longbow/4 Cannon combo. Anything else just wastes time, and the ranged unit mix tears them up before they can close and do damage even on AI. Once you've hit EMA/HMA, any mix of ranged and artillery will absolutely destroy the spear defense, though EMA's Mounted Archers can be kind of dumb and run into the Spearfighters' attack range on the first round which is a small problem if they can't shoot both spears dead before they can move. Even IA Archers can slaughter Spearfighters with even a modest boost to attack, though sometimes they'll take damage on AI.
Best results I find are in the middle of the hood. The top 10-20 people usually know how to defend and collect on time, though I've occasionally found soft targets in that range. The bottom of the hood, usually people ranked past about #60 tend to be the noobs, sure they got Spearfighters, but they also have crap from 4 ages back, a terrible city design, incomplete building sets, and any goods they do produce are nearly always unboosted. The middle's where you'll find the good stuff, soft defenses, as well as completed sets with their sweet plunder options, bazaars and the like, and decent goods production where no one collects on time.
It does take patience and time to live off plundering though, you'll need to revist some of the cities more than once to find something good. And take notes on what they defend with and what they have, I use a Google spreadsheet to keep track of my neighbors, among other things.
Everyone's got a weakness, you just to figure out what it is.
(I've always been more of a Batman fan myself).