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Attack versus Defense Boosts

Iggy112

Member
I know it is a difficult analysis, but has anyone evaluated the relative value of attack versus defense boosts for your attacking army? The new Ferris Wheel options awakened this discussion in our guild.

On a different matter, does Inno have any plans to implement a consistent approach to the red, blue and white sword/shield images to designate attack/defense for attacking/defending armies? Even advanced players struggle to understand this sometimes.
 

Ironrooster

Well-Known Member
You would have to do your calculations for each unit for each age. As an example the catapult unit from EMA. It's 6 attack and 3 defense. It's use is as a long range attack unit. So boosting your attack value would be best IMHO. OTOH the heavy infantry from HMA at 16/26 would benefit more from defense boost. In the InA the howitzer unit 35/35 is a heavy unit with a range of 6 and equal A/D, so the best here probably relates to how you use it. If it defends your artillery units then defense boost might be best. If you like to use 8 of them and attack then attack boost might be best

And then you need to look at the efficiency of the boost per tile. The sentinel tower level 2 provides a defense boost of 4 for 1 tile. The ferris wheel - wonder wheel - doesn't come close to that. But there is no comparable for attack boosts so the great wheel version of the ferris wheel is more in line with other buildings.

But the other benefits aren't equal. One has 30 goods/day and 10 FP, the other 20 goods and 12 FP.

In my case my defense boost is already higher than my attack boost, so I plan to go with the great wheel version for the attack boost.
 

Lord Pest

Well-Known Member
I’m struggling with it too. The answer is… there is no wrong choice. Both are good. My att/def is 1245% / 823% in OF. I have both attack and defense buildings in inventory because I don’t have the room to place them. Something has to give.
 

wolfhoundtoo

Well-Known Member
In general (as stated above) it's going to depend on the units you use. In many ways if you are low att/low def then you'll want to get attack up to kill off the enemy faster. Defense while making your units tougher is generally trumped by killing the enemy faster. Write down the results of a few battles (to keep it simple) and see how you are doing damage wise versus the enemy in the early levels of GE and GBG. If all of your units are getting mauled (but few are killed) then you probably want to increase your attack a bit to kill the enemy faster.
 

UBERhelp1

Well-Known Member
It's a hard question to answer. But there are some general tips. First, try to keep it relatively balanced. You need units that can do damage, but also be able to take a hit or two. But don't lean too far to one side. Second, keep pushing more efficient buildings. Try to get the most attack or defense boosts per tile as possible. At this point in time, attack/defense boosts are becoming more important than FP for heavy fighters, so if you find yourself moving towards heavy fighting, start ignoring FP production more than usual. You'll make up the remainder in GBG if you do enough fighting.

The problem is that you can't figure out exact numbers because of GBG. If it were just GE/GvG you could easily give straight numbers, since you can predict the attack boosts on the enemy. But since GBG goes up to 12000, you can't get that high of a boost. So that's where the AO comes in. The higher you can get the critical hit chance, the lower your attack boosts have to be since they will act as mostly as critical hits. And then you need enough defense so your units don't get one-shot.
 

Ebeondi Asi

Well-Known Member
One thing to mention. When you get only one point of damage per hit in a battle, then you know (at least against that troop in that situation) you are maxed out on defense. (IE more defense is not going to make any difference.) ((Since it is a rule in battle that if you are hit you will get at least one health point lost per hit)
So one way to gauge your defense percentages, is to manually battle and watch the health points closely. Do you get more than one loss per hit in any situation? if so, you could use more defense. if not you have all the defense you will need. (at least until you Era up again)
 

Iggy112

Member
Just as a reference, I am SAV with attacking boosts of 1278/804. I have had GbG seasons where I do 10,000+ fights.

I am leaning towards building the defense Ferris Wheel, except I keep thinking about my attacking on my first round.
 

Sheriff Of Rottingham

Active Member
A serious debate/analysis of def/atk boosts would require you to consider the frequency of each boost. Your Attack boost (trigger 1) will trigger when any unit is their turn, is alive, AND their target isn't invulnerable. Your defense boost (trigger 2) will trigger when the defender is alive and can attack and your targeted unit isn't invulnerable. A serious debate on "which is best" for attacking, in my mind, requires you to base the arguments on 1-optimal conditions of choice, i.e. manual battling, 2-that you have access to all game features, and 3-you understand battle mechanics. Under manual battle conditions, and all other game mechanics factored in, trigger 1 occurs more frequently than trigger 2. Often 10x more frequently. For the sake of argument let's say it's only 3x more. That would require the def boost to be 3x more powerful than the atk boost to be equal value.

tl;dr - rogues exist. battle ai works on a set of known rules, humans possess reasoning skills. The frequency of each boost determines their value.
 

Joeyjojojo

Active Member
...a lot of GB's and event/special buildings to boost attack, far fewer boost attacking army defense.
Maybe but SO's boost defense, are available regularly and are much better at it than any other building that does the same. At this point I've pretty much given up on any more def boosting buildings because of them.

It does depend a lot on age and troops, if you camp in VF and are using rocket troops then def is approaching useless. In most ages you will be attacking more often than defending (and maybe often with rogues, for whom the first hit on them def doesn't matter) so attack boost will get you further than def boost, but there was an exception: back when there were 0 def boosting buildings, boosting def was a lot more powerful because it was so far behind.

If you are fighting GBG to an attrition of 100+ every day, then you need both, but you'd probably be better off at 2000/1000 than you would at 1500/1500.
 

JELLOFELLOW

New Member
I have noticed lately that an army with 25% Attrition will beat me because that have a defense higher than their attack. What is the reason for this???
 
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